- 5 weeks ago
Vincent Zurzolo, President of Metropolis Collectibles, joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about comics and collectibles.
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00:00Stay away from my Spider-Man number one!
00:02I'm Vincent Cerizzolo, president of Metropolis Collectibles.
00:04Let's answer your questions from the internet.
00:07This is Collectibles Support.
00:13Joseph Nicklow asks,
00:15What's the most expensive comic book you've ever held in your hands?
00:18Well, it's this one.
00:20This is Action Comics number one.
00:22CGC graded 9.0, the Nicolas Cage copy.
00:26And we just sold this comic book for what is now a world record $15 million.
00:32Nicolas Cage was a huge comic book collector and our best customer.
00:35This was his copy and in 2000 it was stolen from his house in Los Angeles.
00:40We recovered it 11 years later and sold it for Nick for $2.2 million,
00:45which was a record at the time.
00:46This comic book has been in the same collection since 2011.
00:50And only recently we were able to find a buyer at $15 million.
00:53This is the Holy Grail of Holy Grails.
00:56The most important comic book and this happens to be the highest graded copy in the world.
01:00Before Action Comics number one, we did have comic books.
01:04Comic books like this one with detectives, funny animals, teen humor.
01:08But there was nothing else like it until 1938 with Action Comics number one.
01:12Action Comics number one is the first appearance of Superman and the first appearance of any superhero.
01:17People immediately fell in love with Superman and they wanted more.
01:21Without this book, we wouldn't have the cottage industry that grew out of it.
01:24Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and the list goes on and on.
01:28It all started here.
01:30At John Connor asks, what's the most expensive Pokemon card and the rarest?
01:34Well, back in 2021, Logan Paul, the influencer, purchased a Pikachu Illustrated PSA 10.0 for a record then.
01:42$5.3 million.
01:44Why is this card so expensive?
01:46Well, only 40 copies were ever manufactured.
01:49And in 1998, they were given away at a Japanese fan contest.
01:52And this happens to be the highest graded copy known at a 10.
01:56While I don't have a PSA 10 illustrator, I do have a PSA 10 Pikachu Van Gogh card.
02:02And what makes this really cool is it was given out at the Van Gogh Museum in 2023 and it
02:07caused a major disturbance that day.
02:10This card is worth approximately $2,500.
02:13Very rare, very tough to get, and super cool.
02:18ElectronicRound389 asks, how to grade comics and what does grading even do?
02:22To give you an idea on how to grade a comic book, I picked three different copies of Batman 259.
02:27A low grade, a mid grade, and a high grade copy.
02:29As we go higher in the numeric grading scale, from 1 to 10, there are less imperfections on the comic
02:35book.
02:36For instance, this 4.0 you can see has a ton of wrinkles and creases and tears.
02:41Quality is still decent and the page quality is good, but you can see that there's a lot of little
02:47imperfections on the comic book.
02:49On the spine, on the corners, paper missing, and this gets graded a 4.0 or very good.
02:55Next up, we have a mid grade comic book, which is a 6.0.
02:58Here we see a lot less imperfections and defects, but you still have some.
03:03Overall though, a really nice looking book with great eye appeal.
03:07And last but not least, we have the high grade comic book.
03:09This one, graded a 9.0, is almost perfect.
03:14It looks just fantastic and has a great spine, very square bound, beautiful pages, and a beautiful back cover too.
03:23To get a clearer picture of the differences between a low grade and a high grade book, I'm going to
03:28show them to you together.
03:29Here you can see really, really easily that there are a lot more defects on this copy than there are
03:35on this copy.
03:36If you wanted to get your comic books graded, you could ship them to my company, Metropolis, or you can
03:41send them down to CGC, or you can bring them to your local comic shop.
03:44In all three cases, an expert will be able to look at your comic books and tell you what the
03:49grade is.
03:50If you get your comic book graded by CGC, one thing you should know is that it's not completely sealed.
03:56We have to allow for gases that are in the comic book holder to come out and for fresh air
04:01to get in.
04:01So there are, built into this system, ways for that to happen.
04:06Vin Z's asks, has anyone ever bought a prop from the set of a movie? Is this even possible?
04:12It's not only possible, but there's a whole world of prop collectors out there.
04:16I happen to be one of them. And I love props.
04:19Being one inch closer to the movie is just such an incredible feeling.
04:23I'm going to show you my favorite prop. This is the Cosmic Cube from Captain America The First Avenger.
04:29And I bought this at auction for $3,500. I've been offered $15,000 and I just will never sell
04:35this piece.
04:36I love this piece because it's from a pivotal point in the movie where the Red Skull is trying to
04:40get his hands on the Cosmic Cube.
04:42The auction took place at a comic book convention in Chicago.
04:45I remember taking one of my clients with me to the auction.
04:48I won this piece and he stayed behind and ended up bidding on the Captain America costume.
04:54He won it for what I thought was an insane $250,000.
04:59Years later, I got to auction that very piece off for him.
05:03Before we shipped it out, I asked my shipping guys, bring it into my office, and I got to try
05:08on Chris Evans' Captain America costume.
05:10It was amazing.
05:12Tang That Tangerine asks, any way to authenticate movie props after they're in hand?
05:17One way is to screen match them.
05:20This is a sword from Conan the Destroyer. This is the sequel to Conan the Barbarian.
05:24This movie was made in 1984 and yes, this was held by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
05:30And the way you can tell if this is a real prop is by screen matching it.
05:34You can tell by the little imperfections and dings on the sword and by looking at the film if it
05:41actually is the same sword.
05:42Collectors, auction houses, and dealers, they sit down and watch the movie frame by frame until they can tell that
05:50this is the actual piece.
05:51And there's another way to test the authenticity of a prop. It's called provenance.
05:56For example, these are the gloves from the opening scene of Enter the Dragon where Bruce Lee is fighting against
06:01Sammo Hung in the Shaolin Temple.
06:03I saw these online on social media. They were being auctioned and I knew I could not miss my chance
06:09to own such iconic props from one of my all-time favorite movies.
06:13Once the bidding started, it was hot and heavy, but I kept bidding. I was incredibly confident because I've been
06:17collecting Bruce Lee for over 30 years.
06:20And I kept bidding with incredible confidence because I knew these were authentic because of the provenance.
06:26Here we have a certificate of authenticity signed by Bruce Lee's student and friend, Taki Kimura.
06:32So this is a prop where you know the provenance. This was a friend and student of Bruce Lee.
06:37Notorious Amish asks, why exactly are misprints such a big deal?
06:42Well, let's take this book for example.
06:44Venom Lethal Protector No. 1 had a red foil cover except for several copies that got out to the public
06:51with just black.
06:52So the foil never made it onto the cover, making these extremely rare and extremely collectible.
06:58Why do people love misprints? People love imperfections and rarities.
07:02These pieces were not meant to get out to the public. Much like the inverted Jenny stamp, these were never
07:08meant to be held by human hands.
07:10The inverted Jenny stamp has an airplane that's put upside down on the stamp. It's incredibly rare and it is
07:15the holy grail of stamp collecting.
07:17How valuable is the inverted Jenny? Well, in 2023, one fetched a whopping price of $2 million.
07:24Horace the Weeb Master asks, can someone explain what the different ages of comics each mean?
07:29Well, let's start off with the golden age of comics. Boom, Marvel Comics No. 1.
07:33This is the comic book that started the entire Marvel Universe and it has the first appearance of the Human
07:39Torch.
07:39Golden Age comic books run from the 1930s to the 1950s and feature a lot of our favorite characters like
07:47Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America.
07:51And this CGC graded 4.5 copy of Marvel Comics No. 1 is worth an astounding $400,000.
07:59Next up is the Silver Age and here we have it from the late 50s to the 60s.
08:04This is the period that launched the Marvel Universe of comic book superheroes that we all know and love today.
08:11Here we have Amazing Fantasy 15, CGC graded 8.0.
08:15This is the first appearance ever of Spider-Man in a comic book and this copy here is worth close
08:21to $350,000.
08:24What made these Marvel superheroes stand out was each one of them had a tragic flaw, something that was going
08:29wrong in their lives.
08:30If DC Comics was the establishment, Marvel Comics was the counterculture and that's what makes the Silver Age so special.
08:37Next up is the Bronze Age of comics, the 1970s, with some of your favorite characters being brought to life
08:44for the very first time including Wolverine in Incredible Hulk 181.
08:48This is actually his first full appearance in a comic book.
08:51This CGC graded 9.8 copy is worth a whopping $65,000.
08:55This is the Holy Grail of the 70s.
08:58What Action Comics is to the 30s, Wolverine's first appearance is to the 70s.
09:02For me, what makes the 70s so special is you have a lot of offbeat characters.
09:06The mutants from X-Men are becoming incredibly popular.
09:10You've got characters like Swamp Thing and Deathlock.
09:13And here we go with one of my favorite periods in comics, the Copper Age of comics,
09:18which brought to life so many great characters including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
09:23This particular issue is graded 9.2 by CGC and is worth approximately $15,000.
09:29What makes it so special is this is the introduction of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
09:33They've never appeared in a comic book before.
09:35What really makes the 1980s stand out from any other period in time in comics is the dark turn that
09:42they took.
09:43From Watchmen to the Turtles to The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller.
09:48These comic books really set the stage for what will end up being the modern age of comics.
09:54Mussygirl89 asks, do people still watch or collect VHS tapes?
09:58You know, in the last 10 years VHS has become popular again after going pretty much obsolete.
10:03People are buying VHS tapes, watching them, and they're getting so popular just like vinyl records that manufacturers are starting
10:10to make new versions of VHS.
10:12VHS collecting has gotten so popular that there are grading companies like this one, VHS DNA.
10:19VHS tapes are graded just like comics or any other collectible.
10:22You look for imperfections, you see if there are any creases, any dents, any wrinkles in the plastic wrap, and
10:29then you grade them.
10:30Why would anybody collect VHS tapes? Well, in our modern age where people are being bombarded by tons of content
10:36on social media and streaming, this takes you back to a simpler day where you could focus on just the
10:41movie.
10:42Another thing, a movie like Aliens, when you watch it in VHS, it's muddier, it's inkier, and you don't get
10:48all that detail.
10:49And that's what makes it so special. It simulates what you saw the first time you saw it in the
10:53movie theater.
10:53And finally, many of these movies were never digitized and the only way you can watch them is on VHS.
11:00You might have heard that Disney VHS is the place to be if you're a vintage VHS collector, but don't
11:06buy into the hype.
11:07The rare and limited print runs of old horror movies from the 70s and 80s, that's where it's at.
11:14Your Guilty Conscience asks, what's the most expensive or rare Star Wars collectible and what does it go for?
11:20The rocket-firing Boba Fett is the rarest Star Wars collectible and one sold for a record-breaking $1.3
11:27million.
11:29Kenner manufactured the Star Wars line, the original line, including this Chewbacca.
11:33And what was cool about the original Boba Fett prototype was it shot out the rocket from his back.
11:38They quickly realized that kids might swallow this and get hurt.
11:41So they never went to market with it and that's what makes it so darn rare.
11:45Since it was a prototype, only a few exist in the world and that's what makes it so valuable.
11:50And by the way, since we're on the topic of Star Wars, about a year ago I got to sell
11:54one of the rarest Star Wars collectibles.
11:56It was the helmet used by a sand trooper in the original Star Wars.
12:00Only six were manufactured and only three are known to exist today.
12:04And this was one of them.
12:05I ended up selling it for a fantastic six-figure number.
12:09Pickle 121201 asks,
12:11How many X-Men first issues from 1963 do you think still exist?
12:17Well, back in the 60s they were printing a ton of these.
12:19They used really cheap paper so it was very inexpensive.
12:22I guess they printed originally a half a million copies of X-Men number one.
12:27Only a fraction of those still exist today, probably in the mid to high thousands.
12:32And what I can show you right now are four examples.
12:35What I'm holding in my hand is probably well over $100,000 worth of X-Men number ones.
12:41When Stan Lee first came up with this comic book concept, it was about tolerance.
12:45This was during the civil rights movement.
12:47And what he wanted to show was that people, even if they're different, should be loved.
12:52The original title for this comic book was The Mutants.
12:56But his publisher at the time thought it sounded like evil, bad guys, the mutants.
13:01So he turned it into the X-Men, named after Professor Charles Xavier, the leader of the X-Men.
13:07And since we're on the topic of Silver Age number ones, I want to share something else with you.
13:12Here we have a stack of amazing Spider-Man number one.
13:16This is his very first issue.
13:17The first appearance of J. Jonah Jameson.
13:20The first appearance of the villain, the chameleon.
13:22And it's the first time he ever meets the Fantastic Four.
13:26Spider-Man always appealed to me as a little kid because he didn't have big muscles.
13:30He wasn't a grown-up.
13:31He was a kid, like me.
13:33And he had all the problems that every one of us had when we were kids.
13:36There was always somebody bigger picking on us.
13:38And you never had any money in your pocket.
13:41Maybe the girls weren't always going after you.
13:43So a lot of us could relate to poor Peter Parker's problems.
13:46These six copies of Amazing Spider-Man number one are worth, in total, over $150,000.
13:54Here's a question from Quora.
13:56What aged vintage toys are worth a lot?
13:59Toys from the 70s, 80s, and 90s are incredibly popular and highly collected.
14:03From Star Wars to Aliens.
14:06You name it, and people love it from this time period.
14:09Now what happens is, as people get older, they hit a certain point where they can start taking discretionary income
14:15and buying things that they remember from their childhood.
14:18So collectibles, toys, go in a 30-year cycle.
14:21Right now, toys from the early 2000s, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tamagotchi, are becoming increasingly popular.
14:27So don't throw those out.
14:29And by the way, I bought a great toy from my childhood.
14:33Check this out.
14:34This is from the 70s, and I remember getting this Christmas morning dragoon from the Shogun Warriors.
14:40Pew, pew, pew, pew!
14:42Mission accomplished!
14:43At Age of Rising asks, like, are video game collectors supposed to not play the video games they love so
14:48much?
14:49Well, there's no hard and fast rule.
14:51Some people like to play video games, and some people like to collect and invest them.
14:54If you want to collect and invest in a game, you get them certified, like this Centipede game from WADA.
14:59How do you grade a video game? It's very similar to comics, cards, and VHS.
15:05You're grading the imperfections or lack thereof on the holder, on the box, and also looking at how the wrapper
15:12is so tight, so perfect, without any wrinkles, without any tears.
15:17This Centipede video game is factory sealed from 1983 in mint condition.
15:22Graded by WADA, you can see there are no imperfections on it.
15:26The box is perfect, the wrapper is perfect, and it's great.
15:29But even if you have just a cartridge, you can also get that graded as well.
15:33If you want to start collecting video games, you can collect NES, SNES, and if you want to hit that
15:39sweet spot of the 30-year-old nostalgic resurgence of interest, go with PlayStation 1 and Xbox.
15:46By the way, I've got a great video game story. Check this out.
15:49A couple of years ago, I meet Mike Tyson at an event. He's busy, hundreds of people around him, and
15:55I finally corner him.
15:56I say, Mike, could you please sign my punch out?
15:59Grabs his pen, starts to sign it, and just as he is, somebody calls, hey Mike, and he looks up,
16:05and he signed half of it on the spot where we cut it out, and half of it on the
16:09plastic.
16:10I'll never sell this, and it makes a great conversation piece, and it's mine.
16:14At Jay Palmiati asks, and that's a friend of mine, super comic creator, Jimmy Palmiati, we are seeing super high
16:20prices on original comic art.
16:22Now I know for a fact more people than ever are collecting, but why do you think the prices are
16:27rising so quickly?
16:27I think what makes comic art so darn special is each page is one of a kind.
16:33This is a production piece of art from X-Men number one by none other than Jack the King Kirby,
16:40one of the greatest comic book creators of all time.
16:42He basically invented the Marvel way of storytelling. Super bombastic fight scenes, action like you've never seen before.
16:49Comic art appreciation harkens back to several different golden rules.
16:53People are buying what they love. It's unique, it's rare, it was basically thrown away for the most part.
16:59So anything surviving is really, really valuable, and really cool.
17:04You may be asking yourself, why are these in black and white, and comics are in color?
17:07After this process of penciling and inking, copies were made of it, and the colorist would color those copies,
17:13and the editors would adjust the colors until they got it just right, and then sent it off to the
17:17publishers.
17:18And yes, it's true, the prices are going up, up, and away.
17:21I bought this piece of art about 15 years ago for probably around $35,000, and I've already turned down
17:29offers of a quarter of a million.
17:31Thirsty's New and Used asks, what is the rarest comic of all time? Is it this one?
17:36And there's a picture of New Adventure Comics 26, which is an incredibly rare book from 1938,
17:42and yes, probably the toughest DC comic to find.
17:46New Adventure 26 was printed in a very, very low print run, so there are very few survivors that have
17:53made it close to a hundred years later.
17:55But on the other hand, we also have from Marvel, or Timely at the time, Motion Picture Funnies Weekly No.
18:021,
18:02which was a giveaway with the first appearance of the first Marvel superhero, Submariner.
18:07In my career of 40 years, I've only bought and sold maybe two or three copies.
18:12If somebody found a complete copy of this, at minimal, I think it would be worth about $50,000.
18:19Here's a question from the Comic Book Collecting subreddit.
18:22What's the first comic book you ever bought that started your love of collecting?
18:25That's an awesome question, and I've got the book right here.
18:28When I was a little boy, my big brothers bought me this comic book, Astonishing Tales 31.
18:33And I didn't know who this guy was, but I wanted to figure it out.
18:37I remember going through the pages and seeing the colors and the costumes, and I could not put it down.
18:42And this comic book is such a big part of why I fell in love with the whole art form
18:48and with comic books in general.
18:50The cover is by Ed Hannigan and Bernie Wrightson, who I later got to meet in person as a professional
18:55in comic books.
18:56But this is the book that started it all.
18:59OfficialKnockout wants to know,
19:00My uncle gave me a ton of his comics he has been collecting since the 90s to try and sell.
19:05I know nothing about them. Where would I start to really understand how to look them up and value them?
19:09One thing you can do is pick up a copy of the Overstreet Price Guide.
19:13This is the Bible of comic books and has every single comic book ever made.
19:17Another way to find out the value of your comic books is to go to either a local comic store,
19:22our offices here in Midtown Manhattan, or a great comic book convention in your location.
19:27When you go to these conventions, you're surrounded by dealers from all over the country,
19:30and they can give you an idea as to what your comic books are worth.
19:33Lee Perez Ray asks,
19:35Metropolis Comic, I found my old pod collection from the 90s.
19:38How many millions of dollars is it worth? Ready to cash in.
19:42Well, since he's a member of the staff here, we're going to ask him to bring on his collection,
19:47and I'm going to do a free appraisal.
19:50Wow. That's a lot of pogs.
19:53Let's take a look at them.
19:54In the early 90s, pogs became really popular.
19:57They moved their way west, actually from Hawaii, through the United States mainland.
20:01And I remember I was at a San Diego Comic Con, and these appeared out of nowhere.
20:05They're cardboard discs that feature anybody from Pocahontas to Michael Jordan.
20:10They became incredibly popular in the early to mid 90s.
20:13Pogs are generally worthless, unless maybe they're in sealed packs like this.
20:19And especially, there was a set made for Jurassic Park with holographic dinosaurs on the pogs and the slammer,
20:25and these are collectible.
20:26In fact, a set sold recently for $2,500.
20:31If you want to know what these are worth, I actually could trade you for some Beanie Babies.
20:35Another fad collectible from the 90s.
20:38Here you go.
20:39The Beanie Babies craze was incredible.
20:42People couldn't get enough of these.
20:44You'd buy them in every type of shop you could imagine,
20:46from comic book and collectible stores to your local pharmacies.
20:49They were everywhere, and some of them were thought to be incredibly scarce.
20:54Unfortunately, the interest in Beanie Babies died down, and the collectible aspect of them disappeared.
21:00An oversaturation of the market for Beanie Babies really caused the downfall and the lack of interest later on over
21:07the years.
21:08The moral of the story is try to collect things that have true scarcity levels to them,
21:14not manufactured collectibles.
21:16And also, most importantly, buy what you love.
21:19I remember when these showed up at San Diego Comic Con.
21:22It was probably like 1994.
21:24And I was like, what the f*** are these?
21:26And why are people collecting little cardboard circles?
21:29Dealers were coming up, do you want to buy some pogs?
21:30And I was like, no.
21:31S***wave asks, what is your favorite rare or valuable book and why?
21:35Well, I happen to have right here one of my favorite pulps of all time.
21:39This is from October 1933.
21:41It is Weird Tales.
21:43And this cover is painted by none other than the legendary pulp painter Margaret Brundage.
21:48They showcase some of the greatest science fiction, horror, and fantasy stories ever written.
21:54These pulps were made with pulp paper, hence the name.
21:57It was very inexpensive and they could produce tons of these.
22:00This one was 25 cents.
22:02Pulps were widely read by the general public and were incredibly popular.
22:06These are the predecessors of comic books.
22:09And many of the great science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories started in the pulps.
22:14For example, Conan started in the pulps.
22:17H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Loa Mythos started in the pulps.
22:21Those are all the questions for today.
22:23Thanks for watching.
22:24Collectible support.
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