Tales to Astonish #27 is the first appearance of Henry Pym. It is not the first appearance of Ant-Man, and those are genuinely different comics. Tales to Astonish #27 value starts there.
In this issue Pym is a scientist in a lab coat who shrinks himself by accident in a one-off science-fiction story. The costume, the name and the superhero do not arrive until Tales to Astonish #35, eight issues later.
Which book does the market actually pay for?
Both, for different reasons, and the split is not what most people assume. The character’s first appearance in any form is this book, so it carries the first-appearance claim. The first appearance in costume is #35, and plenty of collectors want that one instead.
That means an owner holding one of them frequently believes they hold the other. The cover settles it: #27 is a monster-and-scientist cover called The Man in the Ant Hill; #35 has a costumed figure on it and says Ant-Man.
It also means the run between them is worth reading rather than bagging as filler.
What the auction record shows on its own
Every price in that table is a Heritage result or a completed eBay sale. CGC has not published an auction report on this book, so unlike most pages here there is nothing to link a price to, and I would rather say that than dress the table up.
| Grade | Result | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.0 | $66,000 | Heritage Auctions, June 2022 |
| CGC 8.5 | $30,000 | eBay, October 2022 |
| CGC 8.5 | $25,200 | Heritage Auctions, April 2024 |
| CGC 8.5 | $24,000 | Heritage Auctions, September 2025 |
| CGC 8.0 | $19,200 | Heritage Auctions, November 2020 |
| CGC 8.0 | $17,690 | Heritage Auctions, May 2026 |
| CGC 8.0 | $16,800 | Heritage Auctions, July 2020 |
| CGC 7.0 | $22,500 | eBay, December 2022 |
The 8.5 line is the one to read, because it has been sold three times in four years: $30,000 in October 2022, $25,200 in April 2024, $24,000 in September 2025. Down each time, gently. That is a book cooling off from a peak rather than falling, and it is the clearest trend on this page.
The 8.0 line says the same thing more slowly. $16,800 in July 2020, $19,200 that November, $17,690 in May 2026. Six years and the grade has essentially gone nowhere. On a first appearance that most people have never heard of, flat is a perfectly respectable outcome.
One row does not fit, and it is worth knowing why. A CGC 7.0 sold on eBay for $22,500 in December 2022, more than two 8.5 sales that came later. A single eBay result at that money is one determined buyer, not a market, and it is exactly the kind of number that gets quoted back at me as though it were a benchmark.
The $66,000 at 9.0 is the top of the public record and it is a single sale from June 2022. There is nothing above it and nothing beside it, so treat it as the ceiling somebody once paid rather than a level the grade trades at.
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 Tales to Astonish #27 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.
Tales to Astonish #27 value, grade by grade
203 sales tracked back to 2002; here are the three freshest in every grade.
| Grade | Sold for | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.0 | $66,000 | Heritage Auctions, June 28, 2022 |
| CGC 8.5 | $24,000 | Heritage Auctions, September 30, 2025 |
| CGC 8.5 | $25,200 | Heritage Auctions, April 17, 2024 |
| CGC 8.5 | $30,000 | eBay, October 10, 2022 |
| CGC 8.0 | $17,690 | Heritage Auctions, May 14, 2026 |
| CGC 8.0 | $15,600 | Heritage Auctions, July 25, 2025 |
| CGC 8.0 | $14,400 | Heritage Auctions, April 30, 2025 |
| CGC 7.5 | $9,900 | Heritage Auctions, April 17, 2024 |
| CGC 7.5 | $9,001 | Heritage Auctions, May 10, 2020 |
| CGC 7.5 | $8,520 | Heritage Auctions, November 21, 2019 |
| CGC 7.0 | $6,000 | Heritage Auctions, October 31, 2025 |
| CGC 7.0 | $6,600 | Heritage Auctions, April 30, 2025 |
| CGC 7.0 | $6,900 | Heritage Auctions, April 4, 2025 |
| CGC 6.5 | $6,600 | Heritage Auctions, December 21, 2023 |
| CGC 6.5 | $10,800 | Heritage Auctions, February 7, 2022 |
| CGC 6.5 | $2,629 | Heritage Auctions, November 15, 2011 |
| CGC 6.0 | $6,999 | eBay, May 4, 2025 |
| CGC 6.0 | $4,920 | Heritage Auctions, March 8, 2025 |
| CGC 6.0 | $5,280 | Heritage Auctions, December 13, 2024 |
| CGC 5.5 | $4,392 | Heritage Auctions, May 14, 2026 |
| CGC 5.5 | $4,636 | Heritage Auctions, April 30, 2026 |
| CGC 5.5 | $4,500 | eBay, April 26, 2026 |
| CGC 5.0 | $3,520 | Heritage Auctions, May 14, 2026 |
| CGC 5.0 | $2,750 | eBay, April 10, 2026 |
| CGC 5.0 | $3,562 | eBay, March 13, 2026 |
| CGC 4.5 | $3,950 | eBay, June 8, 2026 |
| CGC 4.5 | $3,500 | eBay, December 2, 2025 |
| CGC 4.5 | $2,500 | eBay, August 22, 2025 |
| CGC 4.0 | $3,310 | eBay, May 24, 2026 |
| CGC 4.0 | $3,395 | eBay, March 21, 2026 |
| CGC 4.0 | $1,750 | eBay, October 9, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $2,200 | eBay, November 8, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $1,034 | eBay, October 24, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $2,040 | Heritage Auctions, September 30, 2025 |
| CGC 3.0 | $2,200 | eBay, July 15, 2026 |
| CGC 3.0 | $1,830 | Heritage Auctions, May 14, 2026 |
| CGC 3.0 | $1,700 | eBay, December 18, 2025 |
| CGC 2.5 | $1,900 | eBay, August 11, 2026 |
| CGC 2.5 | $1,400 | eBay, October 7, 2025 |
| CGC 2.5 | $2,400 | eBay, August 12, 2025 |
| CGC 2.0 | $1,225 | eBay, March 16, 2026 |
| CGC 2.0 | $1,600 | eBay, October 27, 2025 |
| CGC 2.0 | $1,996 | eBay, March 23, 2025 |
| Raw | $2,157 | eBay, July 31, 2026 |
| Raw | $1,395 | eBay, July 30, 2026 |
| Raw | $2,000 | eBay, June 4, 2026 |
Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Tales to Astonish issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. 203 results have been tracked; the older ones price a book the market valued differently.
At CGC 2.5 there are 20 results to compare: $1,076 in 2017, $2,014 in 2023, $1,950 in 2024, $1,900 in 2026. $1,076 to $1,900, with the 2021 peak at $3,327.
The middle of this book is expensive
This is where the page stops being about Pym and starts being about money most owners do not expect. The record holds thirty-six sales in the readable grades over the past eighteen months, and the numbers run well ahead of this book’s public profile.
Three CGC 5.5 copies sold within a month of each other in spring 2026: $4,636 at Heritage in April, $4,500 on eBay later that month, $4,392 at Heritage in May. A 5.0 brought $3,520 at Heritage in May and $2,750 on eBay in April. A 4.5 brought $3,950 and a 4.0 brought $3,310, both on eBay in the same window.
So a well-read, complete copy of this comic is a three-to-five thousand dollar item, and the three 5.5 results agreeing inside six percent is about as clear a signal as this hobby produces. If somebody has told you the first Ant-Man is the valuable one and this is the also-ran, those rows are the argument against it.
Selling a Tales to Astonish #27
- Read the issue number, not the character. #27 is Pym; #35 is Ant-Man in costume. Both matter, differently.
- Twelve cents, January 1962. The story has been reprinted repeatedly in collections that name themselves inside.
- Check for the UK printing. Early Marvels exist with a pence price instead of the cents price and trade as a separate market.
- Keep #35 if you have it. Selling one without the other leaves money on the table when a buyer wants the pair.
Pym or Ant-Man? The cover tells me in one photo.
Send the front, the back, and the indicia. Same-day answer on which issue you have, what shape it is in, and what it is worth today rather than in 2015.
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
- The 100 most valuable Silver Age comics.
- How grading works.
- What to do with an inherited collection.
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.
