SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE #81

Cover shows moderate wear consistent with a mid-grade Silver Age book: a vertical crease running through the upper left near the DC logo, light surface soiling and scattered small spots across the purple background, and a small closed tear/nick along the left edge. Corners show mild blunting rather than sharp rounding, and there is a faint diagonal stress line across the lower Superman figure. The book is in a protective sleeve which limits full assessment of spine ticks and edge chipping; interior pages and back cover were not visible for grading.

Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #81 arrived in February 1968 as part of DC's long-running Silver Age spinoff built around Lois Lane's romantic entanglements with, and schemes to expose, Superman. The series regularly paired writer Robert Kanigher's melodramatic and often whimsical plotting with Kurt Schaffenberger's clean, expressive art, and this issue follows the title's established formula of imaginative situational stories rather than introducing any lasting character or continuity milestone. It sits comfortably within a well-collected but non-key portion of the Lois Lane run.

Demand for this issue is driven almost entirely by Silver Age DC completists and Superman-family collectors filling out long-box runs rather than speculative key-issue buyers. The certified population is modest at 51 total graded copies, with only 45 in the Universal census, and sales activity clusters in the mid-grade range, where most transacted copies land between 8.5 and 9.2. Higher grades are scarce enough that meaningful sales data thins out sharply above 9.2, reflecting both lower survival of pristine copies and limited transaction volume for a non-key back-issue.

This is a book that trades steadily but modestly: raw low-grade copies move as inexpensive filler for long-run collectors, mid-grade raw copies see slightly firmer demand from readers wanting presentable examples, and top-census CGC 9.8 copies, when they surface, command outsized premiums purely on rarity given the thin population at the top of the grading curve. Collectors should expect this title to behave as a steady, unspectacular performer whose value is concentrated in condition scarcity rather than narrative significance.