A Flurry of Bidding Has Started on a Mint Condition Spider-Man Comic
By LIZ LUCKING
Fri, Dec 22, 2023 7:30am
2 min
2 min
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.
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The U.S. now has more billionaires than China for the first time in a decade, driven by AI and a booming stock market.
By ABBY SCHULTZ
Fri, Mar 28, 2025 3 min
3 min
The number of U.S. billionaires in the world reached 870 in mid-January, outpacing the number in China for the first time in 10 years, according to a snapshot of the wealthiest in the world by the Hurun Report.
The U.S. gained 70 billionaires since last year, powered by a rising stock market, a strong dollar, and the insatiable appetite for all things AI, according to the 14th annual Hurun Global Rich List . China gained nine billionaires overall for a total of 823. Hurun is a China-based research, media, and investment group.
“It’s been a good year for AI, money managers, entertainment, and crypto,” Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report, said in a news release. “It’s been a tough year for luxury, telecommunications, and real estate in China.”
Overall, the Hurun list—which reflects a snapshot of global wealth based on calculations made Jan. 15—counted 3,442 billionaires in the world, up 5%, or 163, from a year ago. Their total wealth rose 13% to just under $17 trillion.
In November, New York research firm Altrata reported that the billionaire population rose 4% in 2023 to 3,323 individuals and their wealth rose 9% to $12.1 trillion.
Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla and right-hand advisor to President Donald Trump, topped the list for the fourth time in five years, with recorded wealth of $420 billion as of mid-January as Tesla stock soared in the aftermath of the U.S. election, according to Hurun’s calculations.
The firm noted that Musk’s wealth has since nosedived about $100 billion, falling along with shares of Tesla although the EV car maker is benefiting on Thursday from Trump’s 25% tariff on cars made outside the U.S.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s wealth stood at about $336 billion as of the market’s close on Wednesday, although measuring his exact wealth —including stakes in his privately held companies and the undiscounted value of his Tesla shares—is difficult to precisely determine.
The overall list this year contained 387 new billionaires, while 177 dropped off the list—more than 80 of which were from China, Hurun said. “China’s economy is continuing to restructure, with the drop-offs coming from a weeding out of healthcare and new energy and traditional manufacturing, as well as real estate,” Hoogewerf said in the release.
Among those who wealth sank was Colin Huang, the founder of PDD Holdings —the parent company of e-commerce platforms Temu and Pinduoduo—who lost $17 billion.
Also, Zhong Shanshan, the founder and chair of the Nongfu Spring beverage company and the majority owner of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise , lost $8 billion from “intensifying competition” in the market for bottled water. The loss knocked Zhong from his top rank in China, which is now held by Zhang Yiming founder of Tik-Tok owner Bytedance. Zhang is ranked No. 22 overall.
Hurun’s top 10 billionaires is a familiar group of largely U.S. individuals including Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison. The list has France’s LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault in seventh place, three notches down from his fourth ranked spot on the Bloomberg list, reflecting a slump in luxury products last year.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is ranked No. 11 on Hurun’s list as his wealth nearly tripled to $128 billion through Jan. 15. Other AI billionaires found lower down on the list include Liang Wenfeng, 40, founder and CEO of DeepSeek, with wealth of $4.5 billion and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, with $1.8 billion.
Also making the list were musicians Jay-Z ($2.7 billion), Rihanna ($1.7 billion), Taylor Swift ($1.6 billion), and Paul McCartney ($1 billion). Sports stars included Michael Jordan ($3.3 billion), Tiger Woods ($1.7 billion), Floyd Mayweather ($1.3 billion), and LeBron James ($1.3 billion).
Wealth continues to surge across the globe, but Hoogewerf noted those amassing it aren’t overly generous.
“We only managed to find three individuals in the past year who donated more than $1 billion,” he said. Warren Buffet gave $5.3 billion, mainly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while Michael Bloomberg —ranked No. 19 with wealth of $92 billion—gave $3.7 billion to various causes. Netflix founder Reed Hastings, ranked No. 474 with wealth of $6.2 billion, donated $1.1 billion.
