A man in Elbow Lake, Minn. who had recently purchased a house for next to nothing, only to find out that the house was way more valuable than it appeared. During the process of cleaning and gutting the structure, David Gonzales found a mound of papers providing insulation to the house. Amidst said papers an unusual book caught his eye. A copy of Action Comics No. 1 was found. This comic first aired in 1938 and is the first appearance of the one, the only, Superman.
The house was purchased for only $10,100. When David found the book he knew it was worth money, but had no idea how much. Through the excitement of this find, a terrible mistake had happened. Star-Tribune reported that, “When his wife’s aunt grabbed the comic book amid all the excitement of the discovery, he grabbed it back and tore the back cover. Experts downgraded the comic book’s condition to a 1.5 on a 10-point scale. To put that in comic-book context, a 9.0-grade Action 1 fetched more than $2 million recently.
“That was a $75,000 tear,” said Stephen Fishler, co-owner of ComicConnect, a New York City online auction house that is selling Gonzalez’s treasure. He says the comic book would have graded out at 3.0 without the rip.”
The Star Tribune also spoke with Vincent Zurzolo, co-owner of ComicConnect.
“It’s so hard for anyone to fathom that, in this day and age, you could still discover a comic book that nobody has known about because this book was in a wall of a house for more than 70 years,” Zurzolo said. “It’s pretty miraculous that it even survived and it’s only had one owner.”
Fear not though Gonzales, the book is still on the auction block for $133,000 which will fully pay for the price of your house. Moral of the story? Be careful to check every nook and cranny when residing in a new place, you’ll never know what you’re going to find.