Very old Superman issue that once belonged to Nicholas Cage sells for $15 million

We see more auctioneering mishmash at work with a rare back issue of Action Comics' premiere, which the BBC says sold for a colossal $15 million:

A rare copy of the 1938 comic that introduced Superman to the world has sold to an anonymous collector for $15m (£11.2m).

The private sale of the Action Comics No 1 copy - once stolen from actor Nicolas Cage's home and returned to him over a decade later - was announced on Friday.

The previous record for the sale of a comic book was set in November, when a pristine Superman No 1 fetched $9.12m at auction. Both sales far exceed the original 10-cent price tags - or around $2.25 in today's money.

Yup, as expected, we've crossed the previous record by a considerable margin. And while it was utterly wrong for the criminal to burglarize the back issue from Cage's estate, it's still regrettable we have another example of something being sold anonymously on the market to be kept buried in vaults for eternity instead of going to a museum. There's a lot of potential in setting up a whole exhibition for various back issues of decades past for the public to see, yet everything goes in a cyclical pattern on the market instead.

Soon enough, we'll be hearing that these back issues sold for $20-30 million, and then it'll all become particularly pointless and silly. And neither the mainsteam nor specialty press will question if the speculator market's setting a good example.