A man stumbled across a geek goldmine while renovating an abandoned house on the outskirts of Minneapolis this week, with Minnesotan David Gonzales finding the Holy Grail of comic books among the rumble: the Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, which features the first ever appearance from Superman.

Gonzalez found the comic mixed in with a bundle of newspapers that were being used to insulate the wall of a house he was renovating in the Minnesota small town near Minneapolis. Upon stumbling on the comic he found it to be in an extraordinary worn-out state, but endeavoured to research the comic to see if it might still be worth anything, and it was. The research confirmed that despite being in a state of disrepair it was still a valuable item, although not as valuable as it could have been.

He presented his finding to the New York-based online auctioneer ComicConnect.com, who determined the comic to be a 1.5 on a 10-point scale of value. Still, despite the low ranking, the rarity of the find was so much that Gonzalez still looks to pick up over $100K for his find. As of Friday (May 24), bidding on the comic stood at $127,000, with bidding due to close on June 11.

To put the 1.5 scale into perspective, a recent sale of a 9-rated Action Comics No. 1 recently sold at auction for $2.16 million. Still, picking up more than $100K for a comic that was barely still together is quite the find, so congrats to David Gonzales!

Al Roker
Al Roker as Superman