Record Price for Comic Book

It is a fact well known that if one was to find the correct price for any good, then a well-designed auction would reveal its price. And this principle has worked again with good effect as reported here that a copy of the 15th edition of Spiderman comics was sold for US$ 1.1 million. That is surely an impressive amount of money and the collector has been rewarded for keeping the comic published in 1962 in good and marketable condition.

Leaving aside those who argue whether a comic book should ever cost that much, my partiality towards markets leads me to ask what are the applicable principles recognizable to a student of economics. To begin with, I am less convinced that the price has been entirely determined by the fact that this is a piece of antique. To me, the proper way to look at it is that its age notwithstanding, this is a classic situation where the price offered was about the scarcity of the item as opposed to the age alone. So the correct principle that a teacher of economics should ask students to take note of is that scarcity operates to determine prices.

My business idea is to consider preparing a catalogue of equally scarce and valuable objects that high income citizens of a prosperous may purchase. Wish me luck!