Four grades on this comic have sold exactly once each, ever. That is not a market, it is a list of four things that happened. Showcase 9 value has to be read from the one lane with any depth.
DC gave Lois Lane two Showcase issues in 1957 before launching her own title, and this is the first of them.
A tryout for a character who was already famous
Lois Lane had been in print since 1938 alongside Superman, so this was never a debut. What DC was testing was whether she could carry a book on her own, and the answer turned out to be yes: Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane ran for 137 issues.
That makes this a first-solo-appearance key rather than a first-appearance one, and the market prices it accordingly. It is a real key with a real following and it has never approached the money the Flash and Green Lantern tryouts command.
The record is correspondingly short: a hundred and ten documented sales across twenty-four years, and most of those are in low grades.
To identify it: 10 cents, August 1957, the Showcase logo. Issue 10 continues the Lois Lane tryout and sells for less.
Four grades, four sales
Heritage supplied every row below except one, and none of them is linked: this comic has never featured in CGC’s auction reporting.
| Grade | Result | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.2 | $13,225 | Heritage Auctions, March 2003 |
| CGC 8.0 | $7,200 | Heritage Auctions, June 2022 |
| CGC 8.5 | $6,572 | Heritage Auctions, May 2008 |
| CGC 8.0 | $6,325 | Heritage Auctions, January 2006 |
| CGC 7.0 | $4,320 | Heritage Auctions, March 2019 |
| CGC 7.0 | $3,360 | Heritage Auctions, August 2019 |
| CGC 7.0 | $2,499 | eBay, April 2026 |
| CGC 7.5 | $2,270 | Heritage Auctions, August 2009 |
| CGC 7.0 | $2,270 | Heritage Auctions, May 2014 |
| CGC 7.0 | $1,898 | Heritage Auctions, July 2003 |
The 9.2, 8.5 and 7.5 lanes have one sale each, from 2003, 2008 and 2009 respectively. Those are between seventeen and twenty-three years old and they describe a market that no longer exists.
The 8.0 has two, $6,325 in January 2006 and $7,200 in June 2022, which is about fourteen percent across sixteen years. That is the only grade above 7.0 with any comparison in it at all, and it suggests remarkable flatness.
The 7.0 is the working lane, with six sales: $1,898 in July 2003, $2,270 in May 2014, $4,320 in March 2019, $3,360 that August, and $2,499 on eBay in April 2026. Up sharply into 2019 and then back to roughly where it was.
So the honest position on this comic is that a 7.0 is worth somewhere around two and a half to three thousand dollars today, and that any grade above it is a negotiation rather than a lookup.
The 8.0 pair deserves one more look, because it is the only real evidence of what a high grade does now. Sixteen years produced fourteen percent of movement, which on any other book in this program would be remarkable and here is simply all there is.
What I would take from that: this comic did not participate in the 2021 run-up the way most Silver Age keys did, and it has not given anything back either. It has been quietly worth about the same for two decades, and the 7.0 lane is the only place you can watch that happen in any detail.
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 Showcase #9 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.
Showcase #9 value in each grade
110 sales tracked back to 2002; here are the three freshest in every grade.
| Grade | Sold for | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.2 | $13,225 | Heritage Auctions, March 7, 2003 |
| CGC 8.5 | $6,572 | Heritage Auctions, May 22, 2008 |
| CGC 8.0 | $7,200 | Heritage Auctions, June 28, 2022 |
| CGC 8.0 | $6,325 | Heritage Auctions, January 19, 2006 |
| CGC 7.5 | $2,270 | Heritage Auctions, August 14, 2009 |
| CGC 7.0 | $2,499 | eBay, April 10, 2026 |
| CGC 7.0 | $3,360 | Heritage Auctions, August 1, 2019 |
| CGC 7.0 | $4,320 | Heritage Auctions, March 17, 2019 |
| CGC 6.5 | $3,120 | Heritage Auctions, November 21, 2020 |
| CGC 6.5 | $2,160 | Heritage Auctions, March 7, 2020 |
| CGC 6.5 | $1,613 | Heritage Auctions, April 28, 2013 |
| CGC 6.0 | $1,646 | eBay, November 18, 2025 |
| CGC 6.0 | $1,920 | Heritage Auctions, December 6, 2021 |
| CGC 6.0 | $2,280 | Heritage Auctions, December 20, 2020 |
| CGC 5.5 | $1,350 | eBay, May 14, 2024 |
| CGC 5.5 | $1,673 | Heritage Auctions, January 10, 2016 |
| CGC 5.5 | $956 | Heritage Auctions, June 9, 2013 |
| CGC 5.0 | $990 | Heritage Auctions, November 30, 2024 |
| CGC 5.0 | $1,440 | Heritage Auctions, November 22, 2021 |
| CGC 5.0 | $905 | Heritage Auctions, August 7, 2014 |
| CGC 4.5 | $600 | eBay, August 26, 2025 |
| CGC 4.5 | $680 | eBay, July 16, 2025 |
| CGC 4.5 | $1,091 | eBay, September 24, 2023 |
| CGC 4.0 | $780 | Heritage Auctions, September 30, 2025 |
| CGC 4.0 | $576 | Heritage Auctions, April 30, 2025 |
| CGC 4.0 | $740 | eBay, December 17, 2024 |
| CGC 3.5 | $375 | eBay, June 22, 2026 |
| CGC 3.5 | $745 | eBay, June 28, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $625 | eBay, May 28, 2024 |
| CGC 3.0 | $313 | eBay, March 25, 2026 |
| CGC 3.0 | $350 | eBay, June 3, 2025 |
| CGC 3.0 | $432 | Heritage Auctions, December 21, 2023 |
| CGC 2.5 | $395 | eBay, April 4, 2026 |
| CGC 2.5 | $380 | eBay, September 29, 2024 |
| CGC 2.5 | $350 | eBay, January 15, 2024 |
| CGC 2.0 | $268 | Heritage Auctions, May 14, 2026 |
| CGC 2.0 | $214 | eBay, September 29, 2023 |
| CGC 2.0 | $400 | eBay, November 26, 2022 |
| Raw | $300 | eBay, July 29, 2026 |
| Raw | $133 | eBay, June 6, 2026 |
| Raw | $300 | eBay, May 31, 2026 |
Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Showcase issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. Only the 7.0 lane has more than two sales behind it, which is why it carries the whole argument.
Eight sales, and what they say
Under 7.0 the record is almost as short: eight sales since January 2025, so here is every one.
A 6.0 brought $1,646 in November 2025. Two 4.5 copies brought $680 in July 2025 and $600 that August. Two 4.0 copies brought $780 in September 2025 and $576 in April 2025. Two 3.5 copies brought $745 in June 2025 and $375 in June 2026.
The two 4.5 sales eighty dollars apart are the most useful pair. The two 3.5 sales, at $745 and $375, are double apart and a year apart, which is exactly the kind of gap a thin record produces and cannot explain.
A readable copy of this comic is somewhere between about four hundred and eight hundred dollars, and I would rather give you that band with the eight sales attached than a single confident figure built on nothing.
Selling a Showcase #9
- Ten cents, August 1957. Issue 10 continues the Lois Lane tryout and is worth noticeably less.
- It is a first solo, not a first appearance. Lois Lane goes back to 1938 and this is a tryout for her own title.
- Expect a range everywhere. Four grades on this book have sold once each in twenty-four years.
- Grading is worth it above 7.0. Every documented sale up there is four figures.
Send photographs and you will get a range with the sales attached, because on a record this short a single confident number would be an invention.
Early Showcase?
Nine and ten look almost the same and do not sell for the same money, so the issue number and the August 1957 date are the photograph I need. Text them to me with the cover.
I read every request myself.
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 #8. The second Silver Age Flash, a year earlier in the same title.
- Showcase #4. Where DC’s Silver Age begins, and the expensive end of this title.
- 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.
