Lot 91416
91416: Playboy #1 (hmh Publishing, 1953) Cgc Vf 8.0 Off
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Description
Playboy #1 (HMH Publishing, 1953) CGC VF 8.0 Off-white to white pages. Hef pulled out all the stops with his issue -- Marilyn Monroe on the cover and in the famous nude spread that was the forerunner of the magazine's most identifiable feature, the Playmate of the Month centerfold. The supporting features were similarly well conceived -- fiction by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a humorous collection by iconic cartoonist Virgil "VIP" Partch, an article on the Dorsey Brothers, and features on food & drink and sports. In the ensuing years the magazine would use that basic formula, expanding and embellishing it to stay relevant with the times.
We've offered some nice copies of the premiere issue of Playboy in recent years, but only a few have surpassed the Nat Geo copy to date. Hugh 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 only about 50,000. To give some perspective to that figure, 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 aren't that plentiful, and the fact has become more evident with the ever-rising demand of late. CGC census 3/12: 5 in 8.0, 9 higher. From the Nat Geo Collection.
