With the cash and watch in tow, the group drove off in their car.
Li Du kept the watch in little bug’s black hole. He had the real deal, why would he wear
a fake? He could not bear to dump the imitation watch, but could not derive any
happiness from keeping it either.
They stayed another night in a hotel and the next day, they started their journey back to
Phoenix.
Amengda Mountain in South Africa had been purchased successfully, and Li Du was
free to go over to develop the area any time he wished.
However, Li Du wanted to let Carl arrange for the diamond inspection team to conduct
their checks first. He was not in a hurry to begin the development and was keener to get
an evaluation of Amengda first.
For now, he wanted to go and resolve the bet he had made at Harry Winston, Inc. He
had to obtain Carlston Fritz’s shares!
Sophie had returned to the villa first, and the five little ones had set up their own base in
the spacious backyard. Each of them drew out their territory.
Little Flathead, Ah Meng, had the largest territory. The four little ones were unwilling to
provoke Ah Meng. The hounds were clever enough to notice the wariness of their four
bosses, and were even more cautious around the new family member.
The truck entered the villa’s grounds, where Big Quinn’s wife, Rosalind, was waiting for
him with their three children. Seeing their father, the children climbed onto Big Quinn
and hung onto him like monkeys.
It was a heart-warming moment: Godzilla brought his gifts over to Victoria, Brother Wolf
went to see his recovering daughter and Lu Guan was reunited with his Golden
Retriever.
Hans wanted to take the opportunity to leave as well, and said, “I miss my sister very
much. I want to visit her.”
“No, the two of us have to organize these books,” Li Du said firmly.
Hans instantly lost his enthusiasm and said lifelessly, “We have to do all that work?”
Li Du said, “What if there are valuables in this pile of books? We have to look carefully.”
Big Ivan took the initiative to bring down the books from the car. Hearing Li Du’s words,
he took out a comic book that had been preserved in pristine condition. He passed it
over to them and said, “That’s right. Look, this book seems like it could be valuable.”
With a smile, Hans took the book from Big Ivan. His eyes widened.
Hans held the book in one hand and his phone in another. Then, seeing that his mobile
connection was too slow, Hans yelled at Lu Guan, “Let go of your stupid dog and bring
me my laptop! Hurry!”
Li Du stepped over, took a look at the book and said, “Aren’t you being too dramatic?”
The comic book looked like it had been around for some time. The red cover page had
turned dull. On the front cover, Spiderman carried a little boy and was about to swing off
a skyscraper. There were shadows of cars on the streets below him.
The top right corner of the comic book carried the numbers ‘1962’, and the bottom left
corner was labelled ’12 cents’. The word Marvel was neatly printed above Spiderman. It
was a Marvel book.
Hans said, “Dramatic? I am beside myself. This seems to be the first Spiderman comic
book from 1962. If it really is, this is very valuable.”
“More than ten million dollars?” Li Du asked expectantly.
Hans rolled his eyes, “How can that be? But it might fetch a few hundred thousand or a
few million.”
Once he laid his hands on his laptop, Hans quickly made an internet search. Then, a
piece of news flashed on his screen. There was a picture of their comic book on the
news website.
The headline was, ‘Spiderman’ Snapped Up At Paris Auction. Comics Connection Pays
1.2 Million.
The news article described the story of that comic book. At an auction in Paris last year,
that first issue of Marvel’s Spiderman comic was brought out, and Comics Connection
bought it for 1.2 million. It was actually exhibited in its town hall!
After reading that piece of news, Hans carefully removed the packaging to examine the
comic book more closely.
Having read the publishing details, he could not help but pump his fist in the air. He
yelled, “Yeah, yeah, yeah! This is awesome! It’s this book! One million and 200,000 !
One million and 200,000 US dollars!”
Shocked, Li Du asked, “Really? Someone would actually fork out over a million for a
comic book?”
The most expensive books that Li Du had come across were the set of National
Geographic magazines he kept. They were priced at more than ten million.
However, that was ten million for more than a thousand magazines. Besides, most of
those were the only existing copies in the world. Also, from his perspective, National
Geographic magazines represented parts of history. It belonged to the narrative of all
humankind, and was not something that comic books could compare to.
Now this comic book disrupted his understanding and knowledge of magazines and
their value. A comic book, one that was published only fifty odd years ago, could
actually be worth more than one million?
A million was not the most they could earn from the comic books, however. As they
continued to organize the stack of comic books, they found a few more that were as
precious or even more so.
One of those was the first issue of Superman. On the front cover, Superman was
wearing his iconic red cape, blue spandex top, and red pants. He was running away
from a storm, looking as cool as ever.
In the middle of the front cover were the words ‘Action Comics #1’. This meant that it
was the first issue.
Hans caressed the dated comic book and said, looking punch-drunk, “This is history.
We are looking at history. Buddies, this was the start of it all, the birth of American
heroes! We are looking at a baby photo of an American hero!”
Li Du asked, “Is it very valuable? Run an online check, how much can it fetch?”
Hans said, “There are no trading records online. At most, there are only ten copies of
‘Action Comics #1’ in the entire world. Even DC Comics Company don’t have it… oh,
they had it previously, but it was stolen!”
Li Du was optimistic, “Then it should be worth a lot, right?”
“Let’s put it this way, don’t talk about money, brother. This book is priceless!” Hans
exclaimed. “There are no trading records of the original copy of this comic. However,
the re-released copy was sold for 1.8 million US dollars!”
Li Du was shocked. “A re-release version can fetch such a high price? Are those comics
collectors crazy?”
Hands said, “The high price is due to the main character. Superman is iconic, it is the
first superhero in human history!”
Li Du shook his head, “At the time of the Ming dynasty, we already had a superhero
named Sun Wu Kong in China. This is the first superhero in our history.”
Hans called out, “Who cares who came first? Anyway, this comic is very valuable. It is
very, very valuable!”
Li Du carefully took the book out of the wrapping paper.
There was a price indicated on the front page. The comic was published in June 1938,
and its selling price had been ten cents.
As Hans continued to call out, ‘careful, careful’, Li Du checked the information related to
that comic book.
The first issue of Superman comics, ‘Action Comics #1’, was the holy grail in the comics
industry. It was said that there were fifty copies of it in the world, but there were less
than ten registered on the official records. They were sitting either in huge publishing
houses or in the hands of billionaires.
Besides, Li Du also found a hand-painted copy of the ‘Fantastic Four’ that had Stan
Lee’s autograph on it. That comic book was also worth a lot. Comic books hand-painted
by Stan Lee were typically exhibited in the gallery of Marvel Comics. Few of them were
found in the possession of individuals.
