Here’s the story from Yahoo News:

Western Pa. man has coveted Batman comic

A near-mint copy of Detective Comics No. 27, a pre-World War II comic featuring Batman’s debut, was recently found in an attic and sold to a local collector.

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Collector Todd McDevitt said the Batman issue he bought is worth about $250,000, but he won’t say exactly how much he paid or who sold it to him.

“It was a typical story of someone cleaning up junk in their attic and finding an old comic book and wondering if this was one of those ones that was worth a lot of money,” McDevitt told the Beaver County Times.

Two things pop out to me in this story.

First, the guy says he hasn’t read the comic yet even though he’s been looking for this particular one for years. This kind of collecting things just doesn’t register with me. It’s like the act of ownership of the rare item is more important than the item itself. Sure, it shows a lot of personal financial success to be able to pay for something that expensive, for that I salute him. But I’ve just never understood the reason why behind buying rare wine, guitars, cars, comics, or whatever and never putting them to use. What do you think? Do you have an explanation for this?

Second, cleaning out your attic can yield some valuables, sometimes truly amazing ones but usually ones of lesser value. Sometimes cleaning out someone else’s junk, like I mentioned in my article Tips for Successful Storage Unit Auction Buying, can lead to the discovery of some diamonds in the rough. You’ve got to wonder though if the finder and seller of this comic got top dollar for it. We don’t know since the terms of this sale weren’t disclosed. If you found a potentially rare item what would you do? I’m not exactly sure myself but I certainly wouldn’t sell it to the first offer I got unless I was desperate for cash.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment and let me know.

Amazing Events
Attic, Batman, collectors, Comic, Rare