There is a ten-fold gap in the middle of this comic’s ladder with not a single sale inside it. Adventure Comics 260 value is genuinely unknown across a wide band, and this page says so rather than filling it in.
This is where Aquaman gets a Silver Age origin, in May 1959, rewriting a character who had been running as a back-up since 1941.
An origin retold for a new decade
Aquaman had been in print continuously since 1941 but without a proper origin. This issue supplies one, making him the son of a lighthouse keeper and an Atlantean, and that version stuck for decades.
It is not a first appearance and it is not the first solo title, which is Aquaman #1 from 1962. This is the origin issue, a third and distinct claim, and all three books get muddled in listings.
The record here is thin at a hundred and twenty-seven documented sales, and unusually lopsided: one very high sale and then a long drop to the next documented grade.
To identify it: 10 cents, May 1959, the Adventure Comics logo with Superboy on the cover.
One high sale, then a long way down
No sale of this comic appears in CGC’s auction reporting, so no price below carries a link. Every row is a Heritage Auctions result or a completed eBay listing.
| Grade | Result | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.4 | $26,400 | Heritage Auctions, December 2023 |
| CGC 8.5 | $2,500 | eBay, October 2024 |
| CGC 8.5 | $2,400 | Heritage Auctions, May 2021 |
| CGC 8.5 | $2,151 | Heritage Auctions, November 2016 |
| CGC 7.5 | $850 | eBay, December 2024 |
| CGC 7.5 | $750 | Heritage Auctions, May 2024 |
| CGC 8.5 | $657 | Heritage Auctions, June 2012 |
| CGC 7.5 | $552 | Heritage Auctions, July 2024 |
| CGC 7.5 | $432 | Heritage Auctions, January 2020 |
| CGC 7.5 | $425 | eBay, February 2026 |
| CGC 7.5 | $252 | Heritage Auctions, November 2025 |
The single CGC 9.4 at $26,400 in December 2023 is more than ten times the best 8.5 result, and there is no 9.2, no 9.0 and no 8.0 anywhere in the record to bridge them. That is a gap of nearly a full grade point with no evidence in it at all.
The 8.5 line itself is the only one with any history: $657 in June 2012, $2,151 in November 2016, $2,400 in May 2021, $2,500 on eBay in October 2024. Nearly four times over twelve years, rising steadily and then flattening.
The 7.5 is the busiest lane with nine sales and it is going the other way: $750 in May 2024, $850 that December, $425 in February 2026, and a $252 result at Heritage in November 2025. Erratic and generally down.
What I would take from all this: an 8.5 is a twenty-five-hundred-dollar comic with real evidence behind it, a 7.5 is somewhere between four and eight hundred, and anything between 8.5 and 9.4 is a genuine unknown that would have to be negotiated rather than looked up.
The size of the 8.5 to 7.5 step is worth a second look too. A single grade point separates the $2,500 the 8.5 makes from the mid-hundreds the 7.5 has been making, which is a fourfold drop. On most books in this program one grade point is worth thirty or forty percent, not three quarters.
That steepness is what a scarce book with a small collector base produces. There is real money for a copy at the top of the range people will accept, and very little interest in anything below it, with no smooth slope in between.
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 Adventure Comics #260 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.
Adventure Comics #260 value, what is documented
126 sales tracked back to 2002; here are the three freshest in every grade.
| Grade | Sold for | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.4 | $26,400 | Heritage Auctions, December 5, 2023 |
| CGC 8.5 | $2,500 | eBay, October 22, 2024 |
| CGC 8.5 | $2,400 | Heritage Auctions, May 16, 2021 |
| CGC 8.5 | $2,151 | Heritage Auctions, November 17, 2016 |
| CGC 7.5 | $425 | eBay, February 4, 2026 |
| CGC 7.5 | $252 | Heritage Auctions, November 13, 2025 |
| CGC 7.5 | $850 | eBay, December 5, 2024 |
| CGC 7.0 | $396 | Heritage Auctions, September 2, 2024 |
| CGC 7.0 | $660 | Heritage Auctions, June 5, 2024 |
| CGC 7.0 | $560 | eBay, November 2, 2023 |
| CGC 6.5 | $170 | eBay, November 5, 2025 |
| CGC 6.5 | $275 | eBay, July 24, 2025 |
| CGC 6.5 | $288 | Heritage Auctions, April 4, 2025 |
| CGC 6.0 | $400 | eBay, January 27, 2026 |
| CGC 6.0 | $370 | eBay, January 12, 2026 |
| CGC 6.0 | $285 | eBay, August 13, 2025 |
| CGC 5.5 | $333 | eBay, April 13, 2026 |
| CGC 5.5 | $300 | eBay, January 27, 2024 |
| CGC 5.5 | $345 | eBay, November 22, 2023 |
| CGC 5.0 | $125 | eBay, April 8, 2026 |
| CGC 5.0 | $130 | Heritage Auctions, October 15, 2025 |
| CGC 5.0 | $175 | eBay, August 31, 2024 |
| CGC 4.5 | $166 | eBay, May 17, 2025 |
| CGC 4.5 | $100 | eBay, July 9, 2024 |
| CGC 4.5 | $85 | eBay, March 28, 2024 |
| CGC 4.0 | $190 | eBay, May 13, 2026 |
| CGC 4.0 | $150 | eBay, December 20, 2023 |
| CGC 4.0 | $130 | eBay, June 2, 2023 |
| CGC 3.5 | $108 | eBay, August 30, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $90 | eBay, May 24, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $120 | eBay, May 16, 2025 |
| CGC 3.0 | $141 | eBay, February 4, 2025 |
| CGC 2.5 | $61 | eBay, May 10, 2026 |
| CGC 2.5 | $76 | eBay, January 17, 2026 |
| Raw | $41 | eBay, July 14, 2026 |
| Raw | $31 | eBay, July 1, 2026 |
| Raw | $80 | eBay, June 5, 2026 |
Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Adventure Comics issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. The 7.5 lane holds nine of them and the 8.5 four, and between the 8.5 and the single 9.4 there is nothing.
A hundred to four hundred dollars
The readable end is cheap and lightly traded, at fourteen sales since January 2025.
From July 2025 to May 2026: two 6.0 copies brought $400 and $370, a third brought $285, a 5.5 brought $333, two 6.5 copies brought $275 and $170, two 5.0 copies brought $130 and $125, a 4.0 brought $190 and a 3.5 brought $108.
The two 6.5 results at $275 and $170 sit either side of the 6.0 band, which is the sort of inversion fourteen sales will produce. I would not read anything into it.
Round numbers: a readable copy of this comic is roughly a hundred to four hundred dollars, and there is no part of that range where paying for grading makes sense.
How to sell into a gap
If your copy falls in the undocumented band between 8.5 and 9.4, you are in an awkward position and it is worth knowing how to handle it.
The temptation is to interpolate: if an 8.5 is worth $2,500 and a 9.4 is worth $26,400, then a 9.0 must be somewhere in the middle. That reasoning is wrong on a book this thin, because value does not rise smoothly and the single high sale may not represent a level at all.
The better move is an auction rather than a private sale. Consigning a copy in that band lets bidders discover the number instead of asking you to guess it, and on a comic where nobody knows the answer that discovery is worth the commission.
Below 8.5 the opposite applies. There is enough evidence down there to price a copy directly, and the fees on a four-hundred-dollar comic would eat most of what it makes.
If you are wondering why an origin issue trades so far below the debut, the answer is that origins are a collecting category rather than a first appearance, and the market has consistently paid less for them. This book, Strange Tales #115 and Fantastic Four #1 all show the same pattern from different angles.
Selling an Adventure Comics #260
- Say which Aquaman book you have. This is the origin; More Fun Comics #73 is the debut and Aquaman #1 is the first solo title.
- Ten cents, May 1959. Superboy is the cover feature; Aquaman is inside.
- Expect no number between 8.5 and 9.4. There is nothing in the record across that whole band.
- Do not grade below 7.0. The readable band tops out around four hundred dollars.
Photographs will tell me whether your copy falls in the part of this ladder that has evidence behind it or the part that does not, and I will be straight about which.
Aquaman origin?
The right one has Superboy on the cover rather than Aquaman, with ten cents and a May 1959 date in the box. That is what I need in the photograph – text it.
I read every request myself.
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
- Aquaman #1. The first solo title, three years later.
- More Fun Comics #73. The actual first appearance, from 1941.
- The 100 most valuable Silver Age comics. And what each one really sold for.
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.
