Bowman and Topps Superhero RCs
Since the early 1980s, with the explosion of the value of the first Mickey Mantle and Pete Rose Topps cards, rookie cards have dominated the vintage hobby. Collectors prize them to the extent that demand outstrips supply, resulting in a steady increase in value.
While Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and now Shohei Ohtani are veritable superheroes, there are literal ones who seem destined always to remain culturally relevant. And the leading icons among them indeed have rookie cards. In recent years, the value of the first cards of Superman and Batman have leapt tall buildings in a single bound. And the value of the rookie card of the most infamous villain in history, Darth Vader, can fetch hundreds of dollars, too.
The Superman rookie is the 1940 Gum Inc. card No. 1. (Gum Inc. was founded by Warren Bowman.) The entire series is one of the most popular ever issued. That was due to the immediate popularity of the Man of Steel, who was introduced in Action Comics No. 1 just two years earlier. The cards feature comic book-styled card art. The set’s card No. 1 is the holy grail of non-sports first cards. It shows Superman in the foreground with action lines and his familiar flowing cape. He seems to be literally leaping tall buildings in Metropolis. There’s a plane in the background. The red “S” insignia is less familiar and smaller.
The card back features Superman’s bio, including where he was born and his feats of speed and strength. He’s described as “valiant, courageous — the Man of Tomorrow.”
There are only 253 graded versions of this card, 203 by PSA, according to Card Ladder. The highest grade is a single PSA 8. A PSA 1 sold for $1,375 in November, up from $175 in 2017. That’s a 786% increase in value in seven years. Higher grades have increased in similar proportions in the period.
The Batman rookie is from the Topps 1966 set, which built on the popularity of the TV series by depicting the Caped Crusader in comic-book form. It was Topps’s most commercially successful promotional item, but few were kept.
The Black Bat card No. 1 has 2,105 graded versions, with centering a major issue. The card has nearly tripled in value since 2017, according to Card Ladder, but value tends to rise when the character is in the zeitgeist, like when there’s an impending movie released. “The Batman Part II” is scheduled for release currently in 2027. (One of the factors driving the recent increase in Superman rookie values may be the expected July release of the character’s movie reboot.)
Heroes and Villains
The Batman card back is much more cinematic than the Gum Inc. Superman. It describes how he flashes out of the night and “rips into the disconcerted thieves like an avenging tornado.”
(Note the rarest Topps Batman 1966 card art never made it to the printer: Artist Woody Gelman drew Batman going to the bathroom only for his son.)
As all fans of comic books know, the villains can be as popular as the heroes. Comic book collecting is often predicated on the issue in which a major villain was first introduced. In the card hobby, the rookie card of arguably the No. 1 villain in movie history is the Lord Darth Vader 1977 Topps Star Wars No. 196—a PSA 9 version of the card sold recently for $550. There are only 12 graded higher, with a Gem Rate of just 1.6%. At their pandemic-era peak, these cards sold for nearly twice that in this grade.
That, indeed, may be proof that today’s collectors don’t know the power of the dark side.
