Strange Tales #115 Value: The Origin, Not the Debut

Two of the most valuable comics in this title are five issues apart and describe the same character, and owners confuse them constantly. Strange Tales 115 value begins with which one you have.

This is where Doctor Strange gets his origin told, in December 1963, after arriving with no explanation the previous summer.

Debut in 110, origin in 115

Doctor Strange first appears in Strange Tales #110, dropped into a story with no introduction and no backstory. Readers had no idea who he was, and Marvel filled that in here.

That makes #115 the origin issue, which is a real and separate collecting claim. It is not the first appearance, and a listing that says first Doctor Strange while showing this cover is describing the wrong comic.

Financially the debut is worth several times this issue in most grades, so the mistake is expensive in one direction and disappointing in the other. Check the number on the cover before agreeing to anything.

The printing check is 12 cents and a December 1963 date, no bar code. This is also a split book, with the Human Torch in the front half, so it carries a second set of buyers.

Reading around a lane that stopped

Not one result on this issue has made it into CGC’s reporting, so the prices below stand unlinked. Heritage’s catalog and eBay closings are the whole source.

The 9.2 lane has an odd problem. Its most recent sale is $1,792 in August 2015, eleven years ago, and that figure is below what a 9.0 brought in June 2022. The grade has simply not come up in a decade, so there is nothing current to quote.

So the working high grade here is the 9.4, and it has been sliding: $6,600 in July 2023, $6,000 in April 2024, $4,392 in March 2026. About a third off in under three years, at one auction house.

The 9.6 above it did the same thing over a longer run: $16,730 in November 2017, $11,100 in April 2022, $9,000 in January 2025. Down about forty-six percent across eight years.

And the 8.5 shows how far the softening reaches: $1,600 on eBay in March 2022 and $700 in October 2025, well under half. Every lane on this book with more than one recent sale is going the same way.

The 8.0 lane, with fifteen sales, is the best-documented on the page and it agrees: $1,269 in March 2023, $641 in January 2025, $840 that April, $576 in October, $805 in January 2026 and $850 that February. Down by roughly a third and then flat for a year.

That flat stretch is the useful part. Four sales across thirteen months between $576 and $850 is a real band, and it is the number I would work from for any copy in the eights rather than anything the higher grades suggest.

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 Strange Tales #115 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Strange Tales #115 value, grade by grade

231 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 Strange Tales issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. The 8.0 and 8.5 lanes hold fifteen and thirteen sales, and both have more recent evidence than any grade above 9.4.

Two hundred dollars and change

Below 7.0 this is an inexpensive comic. Fifty-one of them traded over the past eighteen months.

From May to August 2026: a 6.5 brought $317, two 6.0 copies brought $362 and $268, a 5.5 brought $279, two 5.0 copies brought $320 and $185, three 4.5 copies brought $276, $225 and $168, and a 4.0 brought $190.

Three 4.5 sales in one month spanning $168 to $276 is a spread of more than sixty percent on a comic where the whole grade is worth two hundred dollars. At these prices the listing matters more than the label.

For a buyer this is a genuinely good way to own an early Doctor Strange appearance. For a seller it means the honest number is small and there is no point paying to have a readable copy graded.

Selling a Strange Tales #115

1. Check the issue number. #110 is the first appearance; #115 is the origin. They are not the same comic or the same money.
2. Twelve cents, December 1963. Collections reprinting the origin all state their edition inside.
3. Do not use a 9.2 comp. The most recent one is from 2015 and sits below what a 9.0 has since brought.
4. Mention the Human Torch. The front half of this issue reaches a second audience entirely.

Send photographs and I will confirm which issue you have first, because on this title that is worth more than anything I could tell you about condition.

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

• Strange Tales #110. The actual debut, five issues earlier, and the far more valuable book.
• Strange Tales #135. The first SHIELD, twenty issues later in the same 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.