A Flurry of Bidding Has Started on a Mint Condition Spider-Man Comic

An impressively well-preserved issue of The Amazing Spider-Man No. 1 from 1963 will be sold at auction early next year and bids have already reached six figures.

The inaugural issue, which cost 12 cents when it hit newsstands 60 years ago, is in such good condition that it’s being called the “world’s greatest copy” by Heritage Auctions, which is selling the collectible as part of its Comics & Comic Art SignatureAuction, running from Jan. 11-14.

Considered to be in “near mint/mint” condition, the issue has a grading of 9.8 out of 10 from Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), a third-party grading service for pop-culture collectibles.

The comic is from a collection that was amassed by an employee of a museum who stored the comics in tight packs on the museum’s premises. It’s “considered one of the best Silver Age collections ever discovered,” said Heritage Auctions, referring to the Silver Age of Comic Books, a period that spanned roughly from 1956 to 1970 and saw the creation of some of the most famous superheroes including the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man and, of course, Spider-Man.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the current bid for the comic, which marked Spider-Man’s first appearance in his eponymous title, stood at US$220,000.

In July, another first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, in slightly worse condition, sold for US$520,380.

Also selling at the auction is “one of the world’s finest copies” of Superman No. 1 from 1939, according to Heritage. It’s one of only two in the world graded a 7.0 by CGC and considered to be in “fine/very fine” condition.

“This is the finest unrestored copy we’ve ever offered,” the auction house said online.

A Superman No. 1—with a CGC grading of 8.0—sold for US$5.3 million in January 2022, breaking the record for the most expensive comic ever sold.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the highest bid for the issue stands at US$460,000.

Millennial women’s wealth is outpacing men’s as a new generation inherits and grows their assets at a wider scale than ever before, according to RBC Wealth Management.

In a survey of roughly 2,000 men and women with at least $1 million in investable assets, millennial women respondents had an average of $4.6 million, compared with $3.8 million for women of all age groups and $4.5 million for all men.

Inheritance is one part of the picture, as baby boomers are expected to transfer $124 trillion to the next generation, but so is the progress millennial women have made in the world of business, investment and lucrative professional careers as they close the gap with men.

“Millennial women are catching up, or have outpaced the males as far as their wealth building,” said Angie O’Leary, head of wealth strategies at RBC. “We know that’s coming from a more diversified set of investments, such as entrepreneurship, real estate and of course, investments [in financial markets].”

Millennial women, now in their 30s and 40s, tend to differ from earlier generations of women more than they do from men in terms of their source of wealth. While investments were the largest driver of wealth across all categories, millennial women cited business ownership, innovation, and executive roles far more than Gen X or boomer women.

More than 60% of millennial women cited business ownership and more than 40% mentioned executive roles, but neither exceeded 22% for either Gen Xers and Boomers. Younger women also grew their fortunes from professional sports or arts 39% of the time, compared with just 6% and 1% for Gen Xers and Boomers, respectively.

In terms of inheritance, the gap between generations was smaller. About 37% of men and 35% of women cited family money as a source of wealth overall, breaking down to 44% of millennials, 30% of Gen X and 33% of boomer women.

With women controlling so much wealth, their spending and investments as a group are evolving and extending into areas previously considered stereotypically male such as real estate, cars and watches, O’Leary said. “Women are starting to look a lot like their male counterparts when it comes to investments, real estate, philanthropy,” she said. “That’s a really interesting emerging female economy.”

In real estate, for example, single women made up 20% of home buyers in 2024 up from 11% in 1981, when the National Association of Realtors began tracking the data. By contrast, single men make up 8% of the market and have never exceeded 10%, according to NAR.

While men and women shared largely similar priorities overall in terms of well-being, relationships, legacy and personal drive, younger generations of women were successively more likely to value drive and personal power, and successively less likely to rank relationships and social bonds—though that could also be a function of age and stage of life.

“This generational shift suggests evolving societal norms and responsibilities, where younger women seek personal achievements, while older cohorts value nurturing connections and community stability, affecting their financial and lifestyle choices,” the report said.

A Flurry of Bidding Has Started on a Mint Condition Spider-Man Comic

A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities