Celebrate Superman’s 50th Anniversary

… by purchasing an official medallion!

As I’ve touched on before, medallions were a big business decades ago in the pages of comic books. Often, they featured the superheroes themselves. These medallions are quite a bit more pricey than Marvel’s “America’s Heroes” medallions, but it’s the Man of Steel’s 50th birthday, so they had to do something special!

One can only hope with 2009 being the 75th anniversary of Superman, we’ll see some new medallion ads popping up in DC Comics’ titles soon.

Marvel “America’s Heroes” Medallions

One constant ad in comic books back in the day were of companies trying to peddle their cheap medallions. For only $4.95 you could send off for a coin featuring your favorite super hero, professional wrestler or cereal mascot.

Coins were pretty popular in the 80s and they weren’t just for kids. Even “grown up” magazines had ads that offered “special” or “limited edition” coins featuring presidents, Elvis, other historical figures and cars. I remember ads being all over TV as well. This particular ad makes it appear as if “America’s Heroes” was an actual line of medallions and not exclusive to Marvel Comics. I wonder what other characters were captured in pristine ancient bronze?

Personally, coins were never very high on my “want” list of junk that was often pushed in comics. I was more into  getting whatever NES game the inside back cover was pushing or trying out those X-ray specs or getting that hover board so I could live out my very own Back to the Future Part II fantasy.

I guess if Marvel updated the ad for 2009, starting price would be something like $24.95 for a Spider-Man, Wolverine or Iron Man medallion.