Fantastic Four #48 Value: Eleven Sales, No Trend

Most pages here can give you a number for the top grade of a book. This one cannot, and refusing to is the honest answer rather than a dodge. Fantastic Four 48 value has to be given as a range.

It is the first appearance of the Silver Surfer and the first sight of Galactus, and it is the most traded high-grade book in this batch by a distance.

Which part of the trilogy do you have?

The Galactus story runs across three issues and each one gets called the key by somebody. #48 is where the Surfer and Galactus first appear. #49 is the full Galactus issue. #50 is where the Surfer turns on him.

The complication on #48 specifically is that the Galactus story does not open the issue — the previous storyline finishes first, and the new one starts partway in. That is a piece of trivia until you are checking a copy, at which point it is the fastest way to be sure you have the right book.

The original is 12 cents, dated March 1966, no bar code. Marvel has reprinted this issue as a Milestone Edition and as a Facsimile Edition, and both name themselves in the indicia.

One grade, two years, three times apart

Every row below is a CGC 9.8 or the grades immediately under it, and the 9.8 results are all from the last two years.

In 2024 alone a CGC 9.8 of this comic sold at $96,000 in January, $69,000 in May, $52,999 in August, $66,000 in November and $43,333 in December. Same grade, same year, and the December result is under half the January one.

Then 2025 refused to settle it either: $57,600 in July, $35,099 on eBay in October, $56,400 back at Heritage in December. Up, down and up again inside six months.

Anyone drawing a trend line through that is drawing it through noise. What the eleven sales actually say is that a 9.8 of this book is worth somewhere between about thirty-five and sixty thousand dollars right now, and which end you land on depends on the room, the month and whether it goes to an auction floor or a private listing.

The grades below behave better because they trade less dramatically. A 9.6 brought $28,800 in August 2023 and $20,740 in March 2026, and a 9.4 brought $12,600 in July 2025. Those are numbers I would quote. The 9.8 is a number I would give as a range and explain.

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 Fantastic Four #48 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Fantastic Four #48 value across the grades

323 sales tracked back to 2002; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Fantastic Four issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. The 9.8 lane alone accounts for twenty of them, which is unusual and is why this book can be described honestly as a range.

What the readable copies do

Unlike the top of this book, the readable grades are entirely predictable, and there are a hundred and ten sales behind that since the start of 2025.

Early August 2026 gives five of them at once: $1,500 at 6.5, $1,400 and $1,150 at 6.0, $850 at 5.5 and $650 at 5.0. A 7.0 had brought $1,810 the week before, and a 4.0 brought $700 in late July.

That is a clean, orderly ladder from about six hundred and fifty dollars at 5.0 up to about eighteen hundred at 7.0, with no surprises anywhere in it. The part of this comic that behaves badly is the part almost nobody owns.

It is also why I would think hard before paying to grade a copy in this range. Between 5.0 and 7.0 the whole spread is around a thousand dollars, and a grading round trip eats a real share of that.

Selling a Fantastic Four #48

1. Check which issue you have. #48 is the first Surfer, #49 is the full Galactus, #50 is the turn. All three get called the key.
2. Twelve cents, March 1966, no bar code. The Milestone and Facsimile reprints both identify themselves in the indicia.
3. Do not accept a single figure for a 9.8. Eleven sales in two years ranged nearly three to one, and a range is the only honest quote.
4. Sell the trilogy together if you have it. A buyer who wants #48 usually wants #49 and #50, and the set moves better than the parts.

Send photographs and I will give you a number for a mid-grade copy and a range for a high-grade one, which is the difference this book insists 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

• Fantastic Four #1. The start of the run, and a top grade that behaves nothing like this one.
• Incredible Hulk #1. Another mid-1960s Marvel key where the record and the ordinary copy are far apart.
• 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.