Home buyer finds $100k comic book in $10k home’s walls

Unexpected comic book find during home demolition

It’s always nice to find something unexpectedly pleasant when you had no intentions of doing so – like finding money crumpled in the pocket of your jeans. For home remodeler David Gonzalez, that valuable find came in the form of a 1938 Action Comics #1 book stashed among newspapers in the walls of a Minnesota home he was remodeling.

Superman is featured on the cover of the book with his arms stretched upward, hoisting a car. With the comic already receiving bids upwards of $100,000, it’s likely that Gonzalez is joyfully waving his hands in the air as well.

Gonzalez purchased the Elbow Lake, Minn home for $10,100 after beating out another buyer by $100. His increased bid was well worth the more than 10 time projected payoff and has to be the highlight of a day that was designated for demolition work. Thanks to a family looking to insulate their home, Gonzalez uncovered a treasure that comic book lovers everywhere are salivating over.

Miraculous that it survived

“This is like a virgin comic,” said Vincent Zurzolo, a co-owner of ComicConnect.

“It’s so hard for anyone to fathom that, in this day and age, you could still discover a comic book that nobody has known about because this book was in a wall of a house for more than 70 years,” he said. “It’s pretty miraculous that it even survived and it’s only had one owner.”

Gonzalez is selling the comic book through an online auction that will officially close on June 11. The fact that the book has only had one owner makes it rare, as most Action Comic books have been through several cycles of resale given their original publishing dates.

But even though this will add to the book’s value, the potential bid price of the book took a severe hit when Gonzalez first showed the book to some of his family members. His wife’s aunt grabbed the book, and as Gonzalez grabbed it back, the back cover was torn. Comic book retailers estimate that caused the value of the book to drop by a painful $75,000.