Batman #155 Value: Twelve Sales, One Direction

Twelve sales in one grade, and once you put them in date order there is nothing to interpret. Batman 155 value has been falling steadily for two years.

This is the Penguin’s first appearance in over a decade, from May 1963, after DC had left the character out of print since the early fifties.

A return, not a debut, and a long gap

The Penguin debuted in Detective Comics #58 in 1941 and was used regularly through the forties. He then disappears for roughly eleven years, and this issue brings him back.

That pattern will be familiar from the Riddler, who was revived in Batman #171 two years later for the same reason: the 1966 television series was on the horizon and DC was rebuilding its villain roster.

So this is a Silver Age return rather than a first appearance, and its price reflects that. It is a genuine key with a real following and it is nowhere near the money the 1941 debut commands.

To identify it: 12 cents, May 1963, no bar code, DC logo top left.

Twelve sales, and none of them going up

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.

The 9.0 line, in date order: $4,080 in January 2024, $3,656 that April, $3,899 in April 2025, $2,568 that September, $2,160 in November, $2,200 in March 2026. Down forty-six percent over two years across six sales at two venues.

The 9.2 above it did the same over a longer run, from $7,000 on eBay in March 2023 to $5,368 at Heritage in May 2026, about twenty-three percent off.

The one lane holding up is the 8.5, which brought $2,495 in February 2023 and $2,000 in May 2026, down only a fifth, and which is now within two hundred dollars of what the 9.0 last managed.

That convergence is the practical consequence. Two years ago half a grade between 8.5 and 9.0 was worth about sixteen hundred dollars on this comic. Today it is worth about two hundred.

The 8.0 and 7.5 lanes underneath have not moved at all. The 8.0 brought $1,800 in May 2024, $1,700 that December, $1,750 in March 2026 and $1,500 that April; the 7.5 brought $1,800 in March 2024, $1,660 in May 2025 and $1,150 that August. Both are sitting where they were two years ago.

So the decline on this book is confined to 9.0 and above. That is a specific and useful thing to know, because it means the fall you read about at the top has no bearing on a copy in the eights, and a seller down there has nothing to hurry about.

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 Batman #155 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Batman #155 value in each grade

215 sales tracked back to 2007; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Batman issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. The 9.0 lane holds twelve of them, more than any other grade on this book, which is why the decline can be stated flatly.

Steady while the top fell

None of that decline has touched the readable grades, which have been flat across fifty-two sales since January 2025.

From February to June 2026: a 7.0 brought $1,299, a 6.5 brought $800, a 6.0 brought $699, a 5.5 brought $586, a 5.0 brought $569, two 4.5 copies brought $398 and $350, two 4.0 copies brought $400 and $350, and a 3.5 brought $370.

The 4.0 and 4.5 lanes overlap completely, at $350 to $400 for both, and the 3.5 sits inside them. The ladder only starts separating properly at 5.5 and above.

So a readable Penguin return is a three-hundred-and-fifty to seven-hundred-dollar comic depending on grade, and a 7.0 is the point where it crosses into four figures.

Whether to sell now or wait

Six sales in one grade all pointing down invites an obvious question, and the honest answer is not the comforting one.

A falling market does not mean a copy is about to recover. What twelve documented sales at 9.0 actually show is that buyers have been revising this book down steadily for two years, and there is nothing in the record suggesting that has stopped.

What I would weigh instead is the shape below. The readable grades have been flat throughout, which means an owner of a mid-grade copy has no timing decision to make at all. Sell when convenient; the number will be the same.

For a 9.0 the calculation is different and it is uncomfortable. If the trend continues, waiting costs money. If it reverses, waiting gains some. Nobody knows which, and anybody telling you otherwise is guessing at your expense rather than their own.

It also changes what a fair offer looks like. If somebody quotes you a 9.0 figure from early 2024 they are not necessarily trying it on; that number was correct at the time and plenty of published guides still carry it. The correction is to ask when the comparable sold, not to assume bad faith.

The same courtesy applies in reverse. A buyer who offers you the November 2025 figure is not lowballing you either, and the fastest way through the conversation is for both sides to look at the same six dated results rather than argue about who is being reasonable.

Selling a Batman #155

1. Do not call it the first Penguin. That is Detective Comics #58 from 1941 and a far more valuable comic.
2. Twelve cents, May 1963, no bar code.
3. Anything you were quoted in 2024 is too high. The 9.0 has shed forty-six percent since, across six documented sales.
4. Below 5.5 the grade barely matters. The 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 lanes are trading in the same band.

Photographs get your copy priced against the last twelve months rather than the last three years, which on this comic is a difference of nearly half.

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

• Batman #171. The Riddler’s return two years later, for the same television reason.
• Detective Comics #359. The first Barbara Gordon Batgirl, and a far cheaper Batman key.
• 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.