BLACKHAWK #239

Cover shows moderate wear consistent with a mid-grade Silver Age book: visible corner softening at top right, light surface scuffing and a faint vertical crease running through the lower right portion of the cover, and minor edge wear along the top and right borders. Colors remain bright with no major fading, and there are no visible tears or missing pieces, though the book is in a protective sleeve which limits close inspection of spine ticks and staple condition. Interior and back cover were not assessed.

Blackhawk #239 arrived in March 1968, well into DC's long stewardship of the aviation-adventure team originally created for Quality Comics by Will Eisner's studio (with credit generally given to Chuck Cuidera). By this point in the run the series had settled into formulaic Cold War-adventure plotting, and the title's artistic mainstay through much of the 1960s, Dick Dillin, is the presumed hand on this issue's interiors and cover, continuing the clean, dynamic aviation art he brought to the strip before moving on to Justice League of America. The issue carries no first appearance, origin story, or landmark creative event; it is a representative mid-to-late run entry in a series prized more for its overall concept and era than for any single issue's content.

Market data for this issue is sparse, reflecting the modest collector demand typical of secondary Blackhawk issues from the back half of the DC run. The only substantive benchmark is a grade-8.0 fair market value in the mid-twenties, with single-digit census populations scattered across mid and high grades and no recorded sales above 9.4. The absence of any 9.6 sales or 9.8 census population underscores that high-grade copies are scarce not because of intense demand pushing graders to submit, but because so few pristine copies have surfaced or been certified at all; whatever premium exists at the top of the grade scale is driven by rarity of surviving material rather than competitive bidding.

This is a book for Blackhawk-team completists and Silver Age DC war-adventure collectors building toward a full run rather than a title that draws speculative or crossover interest. Raw copies in low and mid grades trade in the range of ordinary back-issue-bin material, moving primarily through dealer inventory and online marketplace listings rather than auction spotlight lots. A high-grade CGC-certified example would appeal to a narrow band of registry-focused Blackhawk specialists, and given the near-total absence of certified copies above 9.4, any 9.8 that surfaced would likely set a new benchmark for the issue rather than confirm an established price point.