Daredevil #168 Value: The First Elektra, Channel by Channel

This comic went out through three different channels in 1981 and the market has priced them differently ever since. A shop copy at CGC 9.8 ran $1,600 to $2,040 this year. A newsstand copy of the same grade brought $2,750. And a British price variant exists that turns up in almost nobody’s search. Daredevil 168 value depends on which of the three is in your hands.

Frank Miller introduces Elektra in January 1981, part way through the run that turned Daredevil from a marginal title into Marvel’s prestige book.

Three channels, one comic

By 1981 Marvel was printing for comic shops, for newsstands, and for export. Shop copies carry a character head where the bar code would be, newsstand copies carry a real bar code, and copies printed for the British market carry a pence price alongside the American one.

The comic is identical in all three. What differs is how many survived sharp, and the answer runs in that order: shop copies survived best, newsstand copies worse, and the export run was small to begin with.

That is why the premium sits at the top of the scale and nowhere else. By 9.4 the shop and newsstand lanes have converged, and below that the distinction is worth nothing at all.

To identify it: 50 cents, January 1981, Daredevil holding his billy club with Elektra in silhouette behind him. Then look at the lower-left box and the price.

Three printings, and one with nothing to quote

Counted separately, each from its own sales. Two are deep records and one is five copies, printed as a count rather than dressed up as a market.

The newsstand premium at the top is real but it rests on one sale this year, so treat it as a reason to identify your copy rather than as a number to bank. One rung down the newsstand lane ran $550 to $760 against a direct lane at $399 to $1,099, which is no premium at all.

The UK variant is the interesting one for a seller, because almost nobody searches for it. Five documented sales exist in total, one of them a 9.6 at $600 in July. That is not a market, but it is enough to tell you the printing is worth flagging rather than ignoring.

The Mark Jewelers row has no price because there is no sale to put in it. The printing exists and copies turn up; nothing I track records one changing hands. I would rather leave the cell empty than fill it with a guess.

The shop edition, which most people own

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 9.8 lane peaked at $2,420 in April 2025 and has six sales this year between $1,600 and $2,040. That is a shallow decline on a decent sample, which makes it one of the more quotable top grades among the Bronze keys I write up.

The 9.6 lane is twenty-three sales deep this year and runs $399 to $1,099. That is an enormous spread for one grade, and it is the single most important thing on this page.

A spread that wide means the grade number is not doing the pricing. Page color, eye appeal and which printing the copy is have all been moving 9.6 results by more than a full grade step would.

Below that the lanes settle: nineteen 9.4 sales this year at $261 to $499, eighteen 9.2 sales at $228 to $538, and nineteen 9.0 sales at $192 to $467.

Those figures are Heritage results and completed eBay sales. GoCollect and PriceCharting track Daredevil #168 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Daredevil #168 value in every grade

314 sales tracked back to 2021; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Heritage rows are verifiable in Heritage’s public Daredevil issue index; the rest are completed eBay listings. The ladder counts shop-distributed copies alone; the newsstand and UK records keep their own columns in the printings table above.

Readable copies and raw copies

This is a 1981 comic that sold well, so readable copies are plentiful and priced accordingly.

Across 2026: 8.5 copies brought $200 to $320 across nine sales, and 8.0 copies $185 to $231 across eight.

Raw copies ran $50 to $300 this year across twenty-nine sales, which is a tight band by the standards of this program and makes a raw copy easy to price honestly.

That tightness is worth something. On a book where a raw copy reliably brings between fifty and three hundred dollars, a seller can make a decision quickly and a buyer has little room to argue.

Which copies are worth submitting

The grading question on this book turns on the 9.6 spread rather than on the 9.8 step, which is unusual.

A copy that grades 9.6 might bring four hundred dollars or eleven hundred depending on how it presents, so the certainty a holder buys you is worth less here than on a book with a tight lane. What moves the number is the copy, not the label.

The exception is a newsstand copy that looks genuinely sharp. That is the one case where submission has a clear argument, because the top of the newsstand lane sits well above the direct lane and a raw newsstand copy will not be paid for on trust.

Before any of that, check the price box for a pence figure. A British variant is a small market but a real one, and it is the kind of thing that gets sold as an ordinary copy by somebody who never looked.

Selling a Daredevil #168

1. Fifty cents, January 1981. Check the price box for a pence figure alongside it.
2. The 9.6 lane runs $399 to $1,099. On this book presentation beats the label.
3. Newsstand copies pay more at 9.8 only. By 9.6 the premium has gone.
4. Raw copies are $50 to $300. A tight band, and easy to price honestly.

Send the cover, the price box and the lower-left box together. Those two corners decide which of three markets your copy belongs to.

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

• Most valuable modern comic books. The era just after this, and the same distribution split.
• Selling slabbed comics. Relevant on a book where the holder matters less than usual.
• The 100 most valuable Bronze Age comics. Where this issue ranks against the era.

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.