SUPERMAN
The Lore of the Contest Prize Ring
A scattered forward and back look into Toy Premium Rings
The release of the first Overstreet Premium Ring Price guide was in 1995. Yes, by the same Robert Overstreet who became the guru and author of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guides. I knew Bob Overstreet at that time. He was a soft spoken and kind man who would focus on his passions and jump into the deep end. His Overstreet Comic book guides were the linchpin to serious comic book collecting. His annual Overstreet comic book price guides became the bible and encyclopedia to the comic book market. They remain held in high regard, and have become collectible themselves, with older editions becoming worth hundreds of dollars. In addition to comic books, he was expert in several other genres, including Indian arrowheads and fossils. He also took to toy rings and felt that these small gems were not understood, and that a large enough and coherent effort had not yet been put forth to organize them, and to understand their importance within Americana. But he intended to change that. His hope was to bring annual Toy Ring Price guides mirroring the template that he had created for comic books. He made three editions (1995-1997), but the public interest wasn’t yet large enough to continue with the expense of producing the books. I was a contributor to all three books. I had a particular focus on certain rings then, so I would find great rings for Bob’s collection, that I personally was not interested in at the time.
There were the earliest collectors of premiums (circa 1980s) who felt the same – Little Jimmy Dempsey, Harry Matetsky, Tom Tumbusch, Ted Hake, Ed Pragler, and Jack Melcher, to name a few. This was all pre-Internet so the bringing together of the massive amount of data never really happened. Everyone was scattered. Little Jimmy Dempsey and Tom Tumbusch put forward great efforts with their publications, but distribution was small. The 1995 release of the Overstreet Premium Ring Price Guide was the first large attempt to expose toy rings as a serious collectible, and to bring in new collectors. There was a lot of “buzz”. The push was to create excitement and to educate collectors about premium rings. The niche Toy Ring Journal also began then to offer deeper insight into various rings.
As expected, what people wanted to know most, as with most all collectibles, was what was the rarest and most valuable ring.
From the start and never looking back, it was the 1940 Superman Prize ring. With an upcoming contest announced in Action Comics #3 in December of 1939, a short-lived (one month) promotion would begin to attract members to the Superman Club. Members could enter the Supermen of America Club contest to win prizes, including cash and either the Prize ring or a Superman patch. To enter, members had to write a short letter (100 words or less) what they would do with Superman’s powers.
It has also separately been alleged, but not documented, that Superman Gum also offered the club ring by sending in five Superman gum wrappers and .10 cents.
The Overstreet Toy Ring Price guide had a 1995 value of $120,000 for the Supermen of America Member Prize ring in near mint condition. That got a lot of attention.
Some evidence suggests that there were possibly as many as 2,000 Prize rings created, but it is not known if production ever reached that figure. As we stand here in 2024, some 60 years since collectors began looking for these rings, the best guesstimates for the number of Prize ring survivors are between 15 and 25, mostly in mid grades.
WHAT’S A PREMIUM?
A question often asked by people is what is a Premium? A Premium is an item that is offered only by purchasing a product, which may have the actual premium inside or attached to it, or by the product having a coupon or proof of purchase ticket attached to it. The coupon could be mailed in for redemption of the item and it would be shipped to them. The key is that the items were unique in that they could not be store bought. They were only available for a very short period through the purchase of a product. Premiums were creative, fun and highly desirable for kids, but they were not durable. They were meant to be played with and used. Hence, they were easily broken, which explains why so few have survived, especially in high grade.
The idea of premium rings began in the 1930’s. A thought I have about the first generation of toy rings was that the 1930s-1940s depressionary economic environment in the United States made available many out of work creative artists, engineers and people of imagination. It was primarily a time before everything cheap and low cost was made of plastic. Although fragile they were intricately made of metal with great designs with much thought and creativity. Companies wanted top notch items to draw the attention of children who would then push their parents into buying the cereal or accompanying product so their child to obtain the promoted premium.
I have collected these rings for about 35 years and know a fair amount about them. Like other collectibles, many that were once thought scarce and rare, are no longer because of the Internet. But being around the marketplace for premium rings, both pre and post Internet, one does get a sense of what has truly emerged as rare, and most importantly, desirable.
The Guinness Book of Records has a collector of toy rings with over 20,000 rings. My head explodes thinking about that. My first collection of toy rings grew to about 2,500 rings. At that point I decided to sell them as they became more of a task for me to manage than to simply enjoy. I began buying a ring just because I didn’t have it, not for the original thought about how cool it was, or whether it was really important, interesting, and special. That is not a good way to collect.
But now, after many years and much thought about how to really bring in collectors to this great collectible genre, I believe that narrowing the focus to what I call “The Greatest Toy and Premium Rings”, makes this a more doable, less administrative and more enjoyable past time. Personally, I believe that a world-class ring collection might be between 100 and 200 rings. Mostly vintage (1930’s-1960’s).
New debate has sprung about which rings should be included on the list of the top 100 or 200 rings? Should it always be the rarest or most popular characters? That certainly needs some debate. Popularity seems to be what keeps the franchises alive. Superman and Batman are both alive and strong 85 years after their birth because movies, TV shows and comic books continue to be produced that feature them. Characters like Tom Mix, Orphan Annie, Captain Midnight, and others, which were household names in their day have faded from the fore. But while the faded characters are little known to younger people of today there still seems a need for some representation of them. However, like most collectible genres, if the franchise of a character does fade out, you then only have the older folks who remember them, collecting them, and when they die, so does the market. The hierarchy will be an evolution onto itself, and collectors will decide.
I have decided to focus on mostly vintage, mostly metal and functional rings. Rings that do something. There are many great rings that display strictly a picture, a badge or insignia, but a ring that functions (i.e., Ted Williams swinging a bat, an Atomic Bomb ring with removable back fin that reveals an atomic reaction, an embossing ring, decoder, compass, whistle, stamper and others that let you interact with it, are just the coolest and best of all, in my opinion.
Valuations must begin somewhere before they can evolve.
Enthusiasts always want to know what is the rarest and most valuable. It’s just a natural question. Somehow the most valuable and desirable of a genre sets the high bar and the rest follow down from there. Many things about collecting toy rings have been argued about over the last 40 years, but no one has disputed that the Superman rings have always been considered the key to a great collection. One of my valuation considerations is that in 1995, Overstreet valued the Supermen of America Contest Prize ring graded in fine condition, comparable to a grade of comic book grade of 5.5 to 6.5 at $40,000, and one graded very fine, comparable to a comic book grade of 7.5 to 8.5 at $80,000. At the same time, comparable graded Superman #1 comic books might have been bought in the range of $20,000 to $30,000. These comics today are valued between $2 million to $6 million in their best grades (5.00 to 8.00), and there are 75 or more examples known to exist in all grades. I believe the correlation between comic book and toy premium ring values will need to be revisited.
There is no precision here, but rounding to lower levels, to be fair, the Action Comics #1 and Superman #1 comic books in Fine grade today could be valued at $2 million or more versus the average of about $25,000 in 1995, 80 times increase. If applied to the Supermen of America Contest Prize ring average 1995 price then of $60,000, we see $4,800,000. I am not suggesting that is to be the value. Not yet at least.
But when considering the inputs. Both the comic books and the rings are extremely rare, and neither should still exist, as they were throw-away items. Neither was meant to save. Books were made to read and throw away. Rings were meant to wear and wear out. There are approximately 75 copies of the Superman #1 comic book and 20 examples of the Prize ring. That’s it. Both are from the first appearances of Superman and the ring was the first premium associated with him, and a cool one at that. The image of an iconic Superman breaking chains is incused within the metal emblem on the front with the words “Supermen of America Member”. And the contest story is compelling. A contest entrant had to write in 100 words or less what they would do with Superman’s powers to win a prize. That was quite a bit more effort than just sending in a coupon, box top and a dime or 20 cents. Then, to repeat, there are only about 20 rings still known to exist today.
I must acknowledge and consider that there are more comic book collectors presently than ring collectors, but even if each Action Comics #1 and/or Superman #1 comic book owners wanted one of the rings to really assemble the total package and make their Superman collection even extra special, that might amount to 200 to 300 collectors. But there are only 20 rings.
From its 1990s heydays, the Superman Prize ring has fallen dramatically in price. Maybe it’s because no one could find them. Or when one did come up for sale at auction (only about 5 or so) in nearly 20 years, they were relegated to the more obscure parts of a sale.
So, if we just go back to the 1995 values, and consider that the number of rings is only about 10 percent of the number of Superman #1 and Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman) comic books combined, I believe the upside potential will be strong. The problem is finding one.
My arguments may warrant a pause or even some laughter but remember that the 1995 value for a Superman #1 comic book in 1995 was about $25,000, and it’s now $2 million to $6 million.
The only thing we know for certain is nothing except Truth, Justice and the American Way.
