Marvel Comics #1 Windy City pedigree (Timely, 1939) CGC NM 9.4 Off-white pages....

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Marvel Comics #1 Windy City pedigree (Timely, 1939) CGC NM 9.4 Off-white pages. It's the granddaddy of all Marvels! And there's no other certified copy that comes close to this one grade-wise. In fact, only two other copies of the issue in CGC's census have fared as high as 9.0! It's currently ranked at #6 on Overstreet's Top 100 Golden Age Comics list.

To put the outrageous grade in perspective, there is only one other 9.4 in CGC's census for the top six most valuable Golden Age issues, one exceptional copy of All-American Comics #16. The highest CGC grade to date for a copy of Action Comics #1: 9.0; for Detective Comics #27: 9.2; for Superman #1: 8.0; and for Batman #1: 9.2.

In the earliest Overstreet Comic Book Price Guides, only Action #1 and Detective Comics #27 were considered more valuable, and understandably so. This is the first Timely/Marvel/Atlas comic book and had the first appearances of the Human Torch, Ka-Zar, and Angel, as well as the origin and first newsstand appearance of Sub-Mariner. The cover art is by the noted science fiction/pulp artist Frank R. Paul, and the interior art featured the work of such classic Golden Age illustrators as Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, and Paul Gustavson.

The Windy City pedigree collection will be familiar to high-end Golden Age collectors. While it got its name from being introduced to the market by well-known Chicago dealer Gary Colabuono, it was actually put together by a mailman in Uniontown, Pennsylvania who purchased every #1 issue he could of both comic books and magazines, beginning in the 1940s. It probably goes without saying that this is one of the unquestioned highlights of that collection.
A historic copy of a historic comic book!
Overstreet 2019 NM- 9.2 value = $720,000. CGC census 11/19: 1 in 9.4, none higher.