Rare PAGE 3 1st Issue Playboy Magazine, December 1953, Marilyn Monroe CGC 4.0 RG

Here we are offering the incredible rare, first issue of Playboy Magazine, PAGE 3 Edition by Hugh Hefner, from December, 1953, with a Restored Grade of 4.0 from CGC. Pages are WHITE. The 4.0 grade is "very good" condition. The restoration is minor and reads "small amount of glue on spine of cover." The initial run of all 1st Issue Playboys was estimated to be around 50,000 copies of which about 5% (2500) were Page 3 issues, making this version much more valuable and hard to find than the newstand edition. From researching, a restored grade has the same rating as a regular grade, the only difference being a minor restoration and in this case that is the small amount of glue on spine of cover.

Here's some additional information about this Page Issue taken from the CGC website:

"Of the several variants of Playboy #1—a newsstand edition, a 'Red Star' copy, and a 'Page 3' copy—the 'Red Star' is considered rarest, followed closely by the 'Page 3' edition; the newsstand edition is much more common. The Page 3 Copy is one of three variants of the initial printing of the groundbreaking first issue, so named because unlike the more common newsstand copies, the "3" is actually printed on the page! These were actually the first copies printed, but were largely pulled from circulation almost immediately on Hefner's orders. For page count purposes, the front cover and the inside front cover were counted as pages 1 and 2, meaning the first inside page was considered page 3. It seems Hef did not want to confuse readers into thinking pages 1 and 2 were missing when they noticed a "3" on the first inside page, so his intent was to simply not number that page at all! To Hef's dismay, a conscientious employee "corrected" what he thought was an error and inserted the "3" just before the initial print run! Try as he might, Hefner was unable to retrieve all the original "Page 3" copies, but relatively few survived. The "Page 3 Copy" version comprises only an estimated 5% of the total copies sold of the first issue.

CGC census records only one example of this Page 3 version graded higher. That copy, a CGC 9.2 which is signed by Hefner, was sold by Heritage last month for $60,000!!

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 just about 50,000 copies. 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 are not very plentiful, and the fact has been borne out with the recent and ever-rising demand for copies of #1."

Don't miss your your chance to secure this highly rare and desirable collectible, Playboy #v1 #1 issue.