Online auction house Catawiki has sold a comic book by Dutch author Hans Kresse for 6,000 euro last month.

According to Parool, it is the highest price ever paid for a comic book by a Dutch artist.

Kresse’s book, called De Grote Otter (The Great Otter) and believed to have been published in the 1940s, is the only known complete first edition copy—another copy exists, but lacks a cover. Exactly how many copies Kresse or his publisher printed is unknown. A second edition from 1953 had a print run of 2,500 copies.

Later last month Catawiki sold a textless Tintin album for 40,000 euro. The auction house claims that this makes it one of the most expensive comic books ever sold at an auction—a statement that gives blogger and comics collector Popokabaka a fresh opportunity to warn his readers for the apparently stormy relationship the auction house has with the truth. Several copies of Tintin alone, the blogger claims, have sold in the past five years for considerably more than that.

In 2010, Belgian Marc Sleen’s Doris Dobbel sold for 12,000 euro, making it the most expensive comic book written in the Dutch language.

(Illustration: Catawiki)