NEW YORK A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman has sold for $317,200 in an Internet auction. The previous owner had bought it for less than a buck.

It s one of the highest prices ever paid for a comic book, a likely testament to the volume s rarity and its excellent condition, said Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the auction site ComicConnect.com and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles.

The winning bid for the 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, which features Superman lifting a car on its cover, was submitted Friday evening by John Dolmayan, drummer for the rock band System of a Down, according to managers at ComicConnect.com.

Dolmayan, who is also a dealer of rare comic books, said he acquired the Superman comic on behalf of a client he declined to identify.

This is one of the premier books you could collect, he said in a telephone interview. It s considered the Holy Grail of comic books. I talked to my client, and we made the move.

Dolmayan said the client has a small collection, but everything he has is incredible.

Only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are known to exist and they seldom come up for sale.

Maybe in a booming economy, it would have done a hundred grand more, but in this economy, I think the price is great, Fishler said.

The man who had previously owned the book purchased it in a secondhand store in the early 1950s when he was nine years old.

He paid 35 cents.

First Published March 14, 2009, 10:10 p.m.