Action Comics #252 Value: How Wide the Range Is

Six sales of one grade over two years, and if you sort them by date they tell you nothing whatsoever. Action Comics 252 value has to be quoted with that in front of you.

It is the first appearance of Supergirl, from May 1959, and a book that has climbed hard over the past decade without ever settling on a number.

A 1959 DC that people actually kept

Late-fifties DC comics survive better than their Marvel contemporaries, partly because DC’s paper and binding were better and partly because the audience skewed slightly older. That shows up here as a ladder with real depth in the eights and nines.

What it does not mean is that the book is common in the grades that matter. Two hundred and twenty-six documented sales sound like a lot until you notice that only two of them are above CGC 9.0.

It is also worth separating from the character’s later firsts. There are several “first Supergirl” claims in circulation covering different versions of the character; this issue, May 1959, is the original one.

The cover carries 10 cents and a May 1959 date, with no bar code and DC’s logo at the top left.

One grade, six sales, no pattern

CGC has published no auction report on this comic, so nothing below is a link. These come from Heritage’s catalog and from closed eBay listings.

Put the 8.5 results in date order: $21,600 in July 2024, $19,200 that December, $16,800 in April 2025, $26,400 in December 2025, $18,910 in May 2026. Down, down, up by more than half, then down again. Same grade, same auction house throughout.

There is no trend in that and it would be dishonest to draw one. What it supports is a range — call a CGC 8.5 of this comic a seventeen to twenty-six thousand dollar book — and an explanation of why the range is wide.

The 9.0 line has done something much clearer over a longer span. It brought $13,145 in August 2011 and $48,000 in January 2025, then $39,040 in March 2026. Roughly three and a half times the money across fourteen years.

And the 8.0 at $18,995 on eBay in November 2025 sold for more than three of the five 8.5 results. A private listing beating an auction floor by a full half-grade is exactly the kind of thing the noise in this book produces.

As with everything on this site, those figures come through CGC’s reporting of other companies’ auctions and Heritage’s own published results. GoCollect and PriceCharting track Action Comics #252 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Action Comics #252 value, grade by grade

226 sales tracked back to 2004; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Action Comics issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. Only two of them sit above CGC 9.0, so the eights and nines carry everything this book can tell you.

A readable Supergirl is still a serious comic

Unlike almost every other book on this site, the readable grades here are four-figure comics throughout, across forty-six sales since January 2025.

From April to August 2026: a 7.0 brought $9,000 and another $8,500, a 6.0 brought $4,476, a 5.5 brought $4,830 on eBay and $2,440 at Heritage, a 4.5 brought $3,350, two 4.0 copies brought $2,500 and $1,850, and two 3.5 copies brought $2,000 and $1,900.

A beaten-up copy of this comic still runs close to two thousand dollars, and a 7.0 approaches five figures. Nowhere on this ladder is a complete copy cheap.

The two 5.5 results are the ones to notice: $4,830 on eBay and $2,440 at Heritage within a month of each other, nearly double. That is the same venue effect the 8.5 lane shows, running all the way down the book.

Selling an Action Comics #252

1. Ten cents, May 1959. Several later comics claim a “first Supergirl” of one kind or another; this is the original.
2. Expect a range, and ask why. Six 8.5 sales in two years spanned fifty percent, so a single confident figure should make you suspicious.
3. Think hard about where you sell it. On this book private listings have repeatedly beaten the auction floor, sometimes by half again.
4. Grading pays on this one. Every grade carries four or five figures, so a submission costs a small fraction of what it can add.

Send photographs and I will give you a range with the reasoning attached, because on this comic a single number would be a guess dressed up as a quote.

Send photographs and I will place your copy in its grade lane against the same recent sales you can read above. Where you take it next is your call, and the options for selling in Southern California are worth knowing either way.

Related

• Showcase #4. DC’s Silver Age starting point, two years before this one.
• The 100 most valuable Silver Age comics. And what each one really sold for.
• Selling graded comics. Relevant here, because venue has moved this book more than grade has.

Cover images on this page are shown small, for identification, with the publisher credited in the caption. If you are a rights holder and want an image removed, contact me and it comes down.