Playboy #1 CGC 9.0Q, Rare Page 3 Copy, Third Highest Graded! Marilyn Monroe

  

CGC Qualified Grade 9.0 (staples replaced). Highly sought-after Playboy #1'Page 3 Copy' HMH Publishing Co. December 1953 with white pages, featuring Marilyn Monroe on the front cover and inside. Of the three variants of Playboy #1-a newsstand edition, a'Red Star' copy, and a'Page 3' copy-the'Red Star' is considered rarest, followed closely by this'Page 3' edition; the newsstand edition is much more common. The "Page 3" and "Red Star" variations both were published in comparatively small numbers, approximately 2500 copies of each.

The Page 3 Copy is so named because unlike the more common newsstand copies, the "3" is actually printed on the page. These were said to actually have been the first copies printed but were largely pulled from circulation almost immediately on Hefner's orders.

For page count purposes, the front cover and the inside front cover were counted as pages 1 and 2, meaning the first inside page was considered page 3. It seems Hef did not want to confuse readers into thinking pages 1 and 2 were missing when they noticed a "3" on the first inside page, so his intent was to simply not number that page at all! To Hef's dismay, a conscientious employee "corrected" what he thought was an error and inserted the "3" just before the initial print run! Try as he might, Hefner was unable to retrieve all the original "Page 3" copies, but relatively few survived. CGC's census provides a clue (as of February 19, 2024): while a total of 359 copies of the more common newsstand version have been certified by CGC to date, just 97 copies of the "Page 3 Copy" version have been certified by CGC to date, compared to a mere 28 "Red Star" copies.

CGC census records this as the only 9.0 copy, with two copies graded at 9.2 and one a stunning highest graded copy of all versions at 9.6. Hefner didn't know how well his concept magazine would be received, especially in the beginning, so the print run for the first issue was just about 50,000 copies. That was only about 5% of the print run of Superman comics in the mid-1950s. Do the math, and you can see that high-grade copies of Playboy #1 are not very plentiful, and the fact has been borne out with the recent and ever-rising demand for copies of #1. Some other recent sales to compare. This was one of my holy grails to own, and it is a great investment as well!