An empty display box of 1940 Leader Novelty "Superman Candy & Surprise" sold for $10,200 at Heritage Auctions on Friday, a public record for an empty box of its kind.
The display box once contained 72 one-cent boxes of Superman Candy & Surprise, which arrived with the first Superman trading cards attached to the back.
According to Kandor Archives, a website dedicated to Superman trading cards, each of the boxes could be detached into a trading card as well as a coupon, which could be exchanged for a Superman ring, a copy of the Superman comic book and membership to the Supermen of America Club with a matching felt patch.
Featuring a number of images from Superman comics, the cards themselves featured little color outside of red highlights.
Released two years after Superman’s debut in 1938’s Action Comics No. 1, the Leader Novelty cards arrived just before the 1940 Gum Inc. Superman set, which is considered one of the most important non-sports trading card sets of all time. The Gum Inc. set, which features a variety of colors and a larger checklist, is beloved by collectors for its tremendous eye appeal.
According to Card Ladder, a complete 1-cent box box with card No. 13, The Bank Robbery, sold for $3,000 at Robert Edward Auctions in April 2020. The highest sale for a single card from the set is the $2,000 paid for an SGC 1 example of card No. 1, Through the Flames.
Despite their scarcity, Leader Novelty cards have sold for a fraction of 1940 Gum Inc. cards, with a 1940 Gum Inc. Superman No. 1 PSA 5 selling for $13,800 at REA in 2021. A PSA 6.5 example of that card was bid up to a record $36,250 at Heritage earlier this year, though it appears the lot went unpaid, and the card failed to sell.
Though uncommon, high-dollar sales for empty boxes of trading cards isn’t unheard of, especially for the most coveted sets.
According to Card Ladder, the previous high was the $9,600 paid for an empty box of 1968 Topps 3D Baseball at Heritage in May. An empty box of 1933 World Wide Gum “Sea Raiders” also sold at Heritage on Friday for $5,400, and an empty box of 1952 Topps Baseball sold for $4,554 at Memory Lane in 2019.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.