(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS & LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA'S "MAIN TITLE (FROM "SUPERMAN")")
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
At first glance, it was just another old box in the attic. Three brothers were cleaning out their mother's old house when they cracked it open and made a multimillion-dollar discovery. Hidden under a stack of newspapers, not a bird or a plane, but Superman - or at least one of the first comic books to feature the man of steel. The 1939 original edition of "Superman #1" fetched an eye-popping sum at an auction last week. The bidding climbed higher and higher, egged on by an enthusiastic auctioneer.
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UNIDENTIFIED AUCTIONEER: If you do not get this, you will kick yourself in the morning, regretting every second that you didn't spend the money to get this. I can guarantee it. Let's go to $7.7 million.
RASCOE: It ended up selling for over $9 million with all the fees included, making it the most expensive comic ever sold. Heritage Auctions, the company that arranged the sale, described it as the pinnacle of comic-collecting. And the brothers, who haven't been named, said their mom was an old-school comic fan who never let go of her collection. So if you've got some dusty comics you were thinking of throwing out, maybe you're better off keeping them. Now, where did I put my kids' comics (laughter)?
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS & LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA'S "MAIN TITLE (FROM "SUPERMAN")") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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