When it comes to top-tier collectible comics — now we’re talking about the cream of the crop here — you’ve got issues like Action Comics #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, and Detective Comics #27, amongst others. Now, one eager seller is trying to add another issue to the Hall of Comic Grails with a book you might not expect. One recent eBay listing for New Teen Titans #6 has gone viral over the weekend for its massive price tag of $1.2 million dollars. Other copies of the same issue are readily available on the marketplace for under $10, so why’s this one carrying a huge price?
Videos by ComicBook.com
It comes with a rare printing defect where the cover doesn’t match the interiors. Not only is the interior for this book not a part of the Teen Titans world, it’s not even a story from DC Comics. That’s right, while this book has the New Teen Titans cover, it has the interior artwork for Marvel’s Marvel Two-in-One #74. On top of that, it’s been encapsulated by CGC with a mid-range 7.5 grade. According to the CGC census, only three such books exist in circulation.
“DC began moving to the no-returns direct market in early 1980’s, and concomitantly decided that higher-quality printing (from 65dpi to 120 dpi) was possible, given that sales of the New Teen Titans were doing well in 1980-81,” the book’s listing description reads. “Bob Spivak, the representative from Ronald’s Printing convinced them that they could achieve far greater margins on a different press. So they shifted to using the offset presses at Ronald’s Printing out of Canada, mainly because Ronald’s M1000-B offset press could produce 60,000 16-page sections an hour; and they could distribute through Diamond Distribution, a source that would be challenged as the “direct” editions became more prominent in sales.”
Just prior to New Teen Titans #6 being printed, Ronald’s Printing apparently had extra interiors for Two-In-One #74 leftover should Marvel order more to distribute. That’s where the error comes into play, according to this eBay seller.
“Remainders, unbound signatures of the “guts” of the book would have persisted in the print shop as “make-ready” for future runs of exclusively Marvel issues,” the listing adds. “Most likely there was still a partial stack or so of “make-ready” that was used to gear up the cover and stapling of the Marvel runs, and some of these were mixed up with the DC run.”
So if you have $1.2 million laying around and want a pretty interesting book, there’s one available! Who would have thought, right?
