Flash #123 Value: A Grade That Never Moved

This is one of the most consequential comics DC published, and its best-documented grade is worth less today than it was twenty-two years ago. Flash 123 value has been flat for a very long time.

It is the Flash of Two Worlds, from September 1961, the issue that invented the parallel-Earth structure DC has been rebuilding ever since.

The comic that invented the multiverse

Barry Allen vibrates into another dimension here and meets Jay Garrick, the Flash of the 1940s. That single story established that DC’s Golden Age heroes existed on a separate Earth, which is the framework behind every crossover the company has published since.

It also brings Jay Garrick back into print after a decade away, so the issue is treated as the Silver Age first appearance of the Golden Age Flash as well as the origin of Earth-Two.

For all that, it has never carried the price its importance suggests, and the reason is straightforward. It is issue 123 of an ongoing series, printed in 1961 when print runs were large, and a lot of copies survive.

To identify it: 10 cents, September 1961, no bar code. The story has been reprinted many times, most visibly in Secret Origins and in modern collections, and each names its edition inside.

Eighteen years of nothing happening

CGC has not published an auction report on this comic. Everything below is a Heritage result or a closed eBay listing, unlinked.

Six CGC 9.4 sales between 2004 and 2022, and they fit inside a band from $16,730 to $23,000. The highest is the oldest. Eighteen years produced no net movement at all, through a period when most Silver Age keys doubled and some quadrupled.

That is genuinely rare, and it is the single most useful thing to know about this comic. A 2004 comp is as good as a 2022 one, which I cannot say about any other book on this site.

The 8.5 line is where the recent activity is: $7,500 in December 2024, $5,400 in January 2025, $5,700 on eBay that November. Down about a quarter from the December figure and then steady.

The 8.0 at $2,440 in April 2026 is the most recent result on the page, and the gap between it and the 8.5 band is large enough that half a grade is worth roughly double here.

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 Flash #123 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Flash #123 value, grade by grade

232 sales tracked back to 2003; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Flash issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. The 7.5 and 8.0 lanes carry thirteen and twelve sales, and both have been quieter than the 8.5 above them.

A four-figure comic from 6.0 up

Fifty-four copies below 7.0 have sold since January 2025, and the useful thing about them is where the four-figure line falls.

From April to July 2026: a 6.5 brought $1,995 and another $1,497, three 6.0 copies brought $1,148, $1,112 and $1,075, a 4.5 brought $1,081 and another $960, a 4.0 brought $1,041, a 5.0 brought $455 and a 3.5 brought $629.

Three 6.0 sales inside two months from $1,075 to $1,148 is a tight, quotable cluster. Below that it gets erratic: a 4.5 outsold a 5.0 by more than double in the same window.

So the practical line is around 6.0. At and above it this comic is a reliable thousand-dollar-plus book, and below it the number depends on the copy and the listing more than on the label.

Selling a Flash #123

1. Ten cents, September 1961. The story is heavily reprinted and every reprint names its edition inside.
2. Old comps are fine on this one. The 9.4 has not moved in eighteen years, which is not true of anything else here.
3. Sell the idea, not just the issue. This is where the DC multiverse begins, and a listing that explains that reaches more buyers.
4. Aim for 6.0 or better if you can. That is where this comic becomes a four-figure book reliably.

Send photographs and I will give you a number, and on this comic I can be unusually confident about it because the market has not moved in two decades.

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

• Flash #105. The first issue of this title, and a much thinner record.
• Showcase #4. Where the Silver Age Flash begins, and the far more expensive book.
• 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.