System Of A Down’s John Dolmayan Buys Rare Superman Comic For US$825,000

The drummer showed off an earlier copy of Superman’s debut in February. His latest purchase adds an ungraded, original-condition edition to a collecting obsession stretching back decades.

System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan has spent US$825,000 on another copy of Action Comics No. 1, the 1938 issue that introduced Superman. He showed off an earlier acquisition in February.

Dolmayan bought the latest copy through Metropolis Collectibles at New York Comic Con in October, according to a publicity release issued on 29 October. The dealer described it as being in original condition and without third-party grading, calling the price a record for a raw copy in that condition.

His earlier acquisition had prompted a rather less technical assessment.

“I dreamed of owning this book for years,” Dolmayan wrote on Instagram in February. ThePRP reported at the time that the copy carried an 8.5 restored grade. October brought another acquisition.

The distinction between the two copies matters. “Raw” means the latest purchase had no third-party grade; it doesn’t mean pristine. Overstreet Access described Dolmayan’s copy as low-grade. A separate, restored copy graded 9.0 sold for US$1.3 million at the same convention.

For Dolmayan, this is familiar territory. He runs Torpedo Comics and has been selling books since the early 1990s. In the dealer’s release, he explained that he started at 18 because asking his parents to bankroll his comic purchases was a difficult proposition.

He was handling serious Superman money long before this latest transaction, too. Associated Press reporting from March 2009 identified Dolmayan as the winning bidder on another Action Comics No. 1, bought for US$317,200 on behalf of an unnamed client.

That history gives the six-figure purchase some context: this is a working comic dealer pursuing a book he had wanted for years.

The latest sale was already in specialist coverage by 17 October, before music outlets picked it up later that month. Dolmayan’s Superman habit, meanwhile, has a considerably longer paper trail.