Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: copper age, frank miller, geof darrow, hard boiled, Sales Record

An Incredibly Rare CGC 10.0 Hard Boiled #1, Up for Auction

Published Fri, 14 Jan 2022 16:32:11 -0600

by Mark Seifert

Last updated Tue, 25 Jan 2022 16:46:40 -0600

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Getting a CGC 10.0 graded comic book is stunningly tough. As the CGC grading scale states, a Gem Mint CGC 10.0 is "The highest grade assigned. The collectible must have no evidence of any manufacturing or handling defects." As of this posting, there are 6,977,732 comic book entries on the CGC census. Of those, there are 7,146 CGC 10.0 listings, or 0.1% of the total. It's an incredibly elusive designation, and even brand new comic books fresh out of the case from the distributor commonly get a CGC 9.8 for, as CGC itself again describes, "negligible handling or manufacturing defects." Oversized comics are even more difficult than usual to get in CGC 10.0, because the non-standard size generally makes them more difficult to store, display, ship and handle. All of that serves to make this Hard Boiled #1 (Dark Horse, 1990) CGC MT 10.0 White pages a unique item for collectors, and it's up for auction at this week's 2022 January 13 – 16 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction #7266 at Heritage Auctions.

Hard Boiled was a 1990 bit of insanity from Dark Horse by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow. The three-issue mini-series takes place in near-future dystopian Los Angeles and is the story of Carl Seltz, an insurance investigator who just happens to be an ultra-violent cyborg tax collector, and perhaps even the last, best hope of robotkind. Miller and Darrow won the 1991 Eisner award for Best Writer/Artist for the series. Unsurprisingly, there's only one CGC 10.0-graded copy of any issue of this series, and there's a Hard Boiled #1 (Dark Horse, 1990) CGC MT 10.0 White pages up for auction at this week's 2022 January 13 – 16 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction #7266 at Heritage Auctions.

Hard Boiled #1 (Dark Horse, 1990) CGC MT 10.0 White pages. Gem Mint copy – the single highest-graded of the 60 copies currently on CGC's census for the issue! Frank Miller story. Geof Darrow cover and art. Overstreet 2021 NM- 9.2 value = $20. CGC census 1/22: 1 in 10.0, none higher.

View the certification for CGC Certification ID 3842958006 and purchase grader's notes if available.