My brother died and left behind thousands of comics. His wife wants to trash them — but he swore they were worth millions. What now?

Imagine Theo, 64, whose brother Anthony started collecting X-Men comics in the 1970s. Sadly, Anthony died last year and his widow Denise wants to throw out Anthony’s comic collection as she prepares to sell their home.

Theo is begging her to hold off. Based on what Anthony told him, Theo believes his sister-in-law could get more money selling the comic collection than she’ll get for the house.

It’s true that some comic books have sold for thousands, even millions, of dollars in the past few years. Heritage Auctions has seen record comics sales in the past two years, including:

• Action Comics #1 (1938), the first edition in which Superman appears, sold for $9.1 million
• Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962), the first edition in which Spider-Man appears, fetched $2.4 million
• Marvel Comics #1 (1939), sold for $1.26 million
• Incredible Hulk #181 (1974), sold for $245,000
• Tales of Suspense #39 (1963), first time Iron Man appears, sold for $230,000

Moneywise reached out to Aaron White, Heritage Auctions’ vice president of Comics & Comic Art, to find out what makes some comics so valuable — and whether someone like Anthony is dreaming.

White described a real-life scenario very similar to Anthony’s.

Reality versus fantasy in the world of comic book values

One of White’s clients inherited comics in “an old brown box” that had been in his family for more than 70 years. When White and a colleague opened the box and started pulling out the comic books, they were in awe.

“We were just shocked how gorgeous they were,” he told Moneywise. “That was a real delight.”

White was present this September when one of those books — the first-ever edition of Captain America, published in 1941 — sold for over $700,000.

Likewise, the 1938 Superman comic book that sold for $9.1 million in 2025 was stuck in a cardboard box for decades. Three brothers discovered it when they were sorting through their mother’s possessions after she died. She told her sons she had a valuable collection of comics but never said where. Turns out they were all in the attic.

“An original owner collection is something that’s very sought after,” White told Moneywise. “People love it when it’s stayed in the same family for years.”

These comic books broke records because they were mint-condition editions from the Golden Age of comics (1938 to late 1956) featuring first-ever appearances of iconic superheroes. Not only were there fewer comics printed in that era, but most were thrown out or damaged, so pristine editions are rare. Low supply, high demand drives value.

High-quality copies of Silver Age comics (October 1956 to 1970) — when comic books generally sold for 12 cents each — are also relatively rare, though thousands more exist. There are far more Bronze Age comics (1970s to early 1980s), when comic books sold for 15 cents apiece.

White says there are many more mint-condition Bronze Age comic books because people started seeing comics as collectibles in the 1970s.

By 1992, when White was 12 and entered a comic store for the first time, a man in the store advised him to buy two copies of the comic he was looking at: one to keep safe in plastic and another to read. White’s father would only let him buy one, but he heeded the man’s advice and stored his comic book in a plastic sleeve in a collector’s box — the start of a hobby he enjoys to this day.

Even though they’re plentiful, books from that period can be valuable. Today, a pristine edition of New Mutants #98 (1991) could fetch up to $1,000 because it was the first appearance of Deadpool. Meanwhile, a flawless copy of Uncanny X-Men #265 from 1990 may be worth just $50.