Batman #181 Value: Check for the Pin-Up First

There is a question to answer on this comic before any question about condition, and most owners have not thought about it. Batman 181 value starts with what is or is not still inside the book.

It is the first appearance of Poison Ivy, from June 1966, and it was printed with a pin-up poster bound into the middle that a lot of readers took out.

The pin-up is part of the comic

This issue was published with a pin-up poster bound into the center of the book. It was meant to come out and go on a wall, and a great many of them did exactly that.

A copy missing that page is an incomplete comic. CGC will note it, buyers will discount it, and it is the single most common reason a copy that looks fine on the outside disappoints when it is graded.

So before anything else: open it to the middle and check. If the pin-up is there and flat, that is worth saying out loud in any conversation about the book. If it is gone, that is worth knowing before you set an expectation.

The original is 12 cents, June 1966, no bar code. DC has reprinted the story in collections since, and those name themselves inside.

A top grade that halved in ten months

Four of these were reported by CGC. The 9.8 pair is the one to look at first.

A CGC 9.8 brought $96,000 in August 2023 and $42,000 in June 2024. Ten months, two auction houses, and well under half the money. Those are the only two 9.8 sales in the public record, so there is nothing to average and nothing to smooth it out with.

The 9.4 line has four results and it is much easier to read: $16,979 in March 2024, $16,800 that October, $12,600 in September 2025, $12,200 in March 2026. A steady decline of about a quarter over two years.

The 9.2 line agrees with it. $15,600 in July 2024 down to $8,540 in May 2026. That is a book cooling off across every grade that has been sold more than once.

The $6,100 at 9.0 from July 2026 is the most recent high-grade result on the page, and it is the honest starting point for a copy anywhere near that level today.

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

Batman #181 value in every grade

236 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. Whether the pin-up is present is not recorded in any of them, which is why photographs of the middle of the book matter here.

What a complete readable copy brings

A hundred and thirteen readable copies have sold since January 2025, and they are affordable in a way the table above is not.

In July and August 2026: a 7.0 brought $1,600, a 6.5 brought $1,400, a 5.0 brought $850 and another brought $749, a 4.5 brought $650, two 4.0 copies brought $503 and $325, and a 3.5 brought $400.

So a mid-grade Poison Ivy first is a few hundred to about fifteen hundred dollars, depending on where in that band it lands. That is a wide range for two and a half grade points, and part of the width is almost certainly the pin-up question that no listing answers consistently.

The two 4.0 sales at $325 and $503 in the same month make the point. Same grade, fifty percent apart, and the most likely explanation for a gap that size on a book like this is what is or is not still bound into the middle.

Selling a Batman #181

1. Check the middle of the book first. The bound-in pin-up is missing from a great many copies, and its absence changes both the grade and the offer.
2. Twelve cents, June 1966, no bar code. Later reprints of the story identify themselves in the indicia.
3. Do not price off 2023. Every grade with more than one sale behind it has fallen since, and the 9.8 fell by more than half.
4. Photograph the center pages. On this book that photograph is worth more than a description, and it is the first thing I will ask for.

Send photographs including the middle of the book, and I will tell you whether you are holding a complete copy, which is the question this comic turns on.

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. Where DC’s Silver Age begins, and a far scarcer book in every grade.
• Brave and the Bold #28. A DC key from the other end of the era, with almost nothing documented in the middle.
• 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.