SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #117

Cover shows notable wear including a heavy vertical crease and rubbing along the left spine edge with several small chips, rounded and worn corners (especially top-left and bottom-left), and general surface wear/soiling across the cover. There is visible color loss along the spine crease and edges, plus some minor waviness suggesting handling/moisture exposure. Book is in a protective sleeve, so no interior or back cover condition could be assessed. Overall this presents as a well-read, mid-grade copy.

Cover-dated January 1969, this issue closes out the Silver Age stretch of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen under editor Mort Weisinger, with a twelve-cent cover price shortly before the line moved to fifteen cents. The lead story, "The Planet of the Capes," sends Olsen through a dimensional portal into a parallel world where anyone without a cape is enslaved, an Otto Binder-scripted premise drawn by Pete Costanza that leans on the same 1968 science-fiction vogue that produced Planet of the Apes; a backup reprinted from issue #56 revisits the next-generation romance between Jimmy Olsen Jr. and Lola Kent. The cover is penciled by Curt Swan and inked by Neal Adams, part of the well-documented run of Adams-embellished Olsen covers spanning roughly issues #110 to #122, and Superman, Batman, Robin and Supergirl all figure in the issue's contents.

Market profile is that of a collected but non-key mid-run title. Raw copies trade steadily and cheaply through eBay, MyComicShop and specialist storefronts, where grade drives price far less than availability does, and the two demand drivers are Superman-family run collectors filling the 100-120 gap and Adams completists who chase the inked covers rather than the interior art. Certified activity is thin: the census supports only a handful of high-grade examples for issues in this range, so the graded market is set by scarcity and by occasional pedigree copies rather than by a regular sales cadence. Absent a first appearance or origin, there is no speculative overlay here, and price movement over the past several years has been flat in raw grades.

Across the grade curve this behaves like most late-Weisinger Olsen issues: low-grade and mid-grade copies are inexpensive run fodder that dealers move in lots, while the leap to census-topping certified copies is disproportionate because 1969 DC newsstand distribution left few pristine survivors and few owners see value in submitting a common book. Buyers are set builders, Adams cover collectors, and registry participants working the Jimmy Olsen title; sellers should expect quick turnover at the low end and a narrow, patient audience at the top. The practical takeaway for consignors is that mid-grade copies are best offered in group lots, and only genuinely high-grade examples justify certification cost.