Heritage Auction Galleries has announced that their August Signature auction will feature an unrestored copy of Detective Comics #27.
The seller has chosen to remain anonymous. He is a lifelong Hawaii resident who bought the comic for $1,200 as a college student in 1974. He is selling the comic now to pay for his son's college education.
"One day I went to a bookstore and the owner had just gotten it in," he said. "I went to the bank and pretty well emptied my savings. This was about 90% of all the savings I had put away from working part-time since eighth grade. I give my father credit — in most cases parents would have said 'are you crazy,' but my dad just said 'it's your money.' My friends just shook their heads, they couldn't believe it."
He later tracked down the woman who had sold the comic to the bookstore and confirmed that she had bought it off a local newsstand when it came out, some 20 years before Hawaii became the 50th state.
"A find like this is every collector's dream," the owner said.
In February 24, 2010 Heritage Auction Galleries sold a Detective Comics #27 CGC 8.0 with off-white to white pages for $1,075,500.