A Milwaukee comic book shop is looking to sell a rare copy of the first appearance of Spider-Man.
Collector鈥檚 Edge has acquired a copy of Amazing Fantasy No. 15, the Journal Sentinel reported. The comic book, written by Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee and published in 1962, tells the story of how Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, gained amazing powers and learns that with great power comes great responsibility.
The shop鈥檚 owner, Steve Dobrzynski, first posted photos of the book on social media last Tuesday. He told the Journal Sentinel a couple found the book among a dead relative鈥檚 possessions and brought it to him for help selling it. He did not name the couple.
A near-perfect copy of Amazing Fantasy No. 15 sold for $3.6 million at auction in Texas in 2021. The Collector鈥檚 Edge copy is worn and the edges have small tears.
Dobrzynski sent it to the Certified Guaranty Company, a Florida-based comics and collectibles grading service. The service rated the book at 3.0 on a scale of 0.5 to 10, with 0.5 being very bad condition and 10 being perfect condition. Dobrzynski said the book could fetch as much as $35,000.
鈥淚t depends, if you put it up at auction, who鈥檚 bidding on it,鈥 he said. 鈥淚f nobody鈥檚 bidding on it, it鈥檚 obviously going to sell for a bit less.鈥
Dobrzynski contacted some regular customers to give them a shot at buying the book before making it public, but he hasn鈥檛 gotten a yes or no from any of them yet.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e thinking about it, but I can only wait so long for people to think about it,鈥 Dobrzynski said. 鈥淚f I鈥檓 selling it for someone else, my due diligence is to try to get the best possible price I can.鈥
The Associated Press