lou_fine

I believe this really depends on what country you are living in. Even though it has been mentioned many times before on these boards here, if you live in America, it sounds as though you can pass on to your heirs almost $12M worth of capital gains or pretty much over $23M if you are married once you kick the bucket and go to that big comic shop in the sky. If true, this sounds like nothing more than a huge huge tax loophole for the regular taxpayers to take advantage of. Of course, if you live in that tax burdened frozen wasteland to the North (i.e. Canucklehead land) where all sporting athletes try to avoid, you can't escape the taxes even by dying. Especially since you are deemed to have disposed of everything at fair market value upon your death and your estate will have to pay the capital gains taxes on absolutely every single little thing you own. Of course, this is done just so the government can claim to the citizenry that unlike our poor neighbors to the south who are subject to an estate tax upon death, Canada has no estate taxes at all. Looks like the real fool proof legal way to pay no capital gains taxes at all is to move to a capital gains tax free country like Switzerland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. say upon your retirement.

Well, if you include the Heritage BP juice which is always included in the final price, it was already sitting at $10,200 as of yesterday.

Is it just me or are any of the other Fox followers also watching to see where this copy of the extremely HTF U.S. Jones 2 is going to fnished up at later tonight: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/us-jones-2-fox-features-syndicate-1942-cgc-fn-55-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122205-19840.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Already sitting at 5-figures which must make the astute purchaser of the Jon Berk Church still highest graded CGC 8.0 copy back in 2017 for only $13,800 extremely happy right about now.

Now you are talking and it's clear that you understand how the grading game is to be played out. None of that brand new look with the natural curve to the books as we want only the squished squashed flat as a pancake look to the books to confirm that you have indeed paid your just full dues to the Blackstone/CCG ownership cartel.

From your response here, it's pretty obvious you don't understand how the whole CPR grading game is played. The correct answer is the first grader looks good to get his year end bonus, while the second grader is due to be sent back for remedial training.

That's actually totally absurb for them to think you would pay nothing at all for a book, instead of basing it on the concept of reasonableness Does that mean if you don't have a sales contract for your sale of Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, they can then claim you sold it for $100K. And are there long term collectors who really have a purchase receipt for every single comic book which they have in their persoanl collection?

I don't see why they wouldn't. Stock traders do this routinely. Cost basis and COGS are real. Totally agree with Ryan here as you should most definitely simply report what you had to pay for the book in the first place plus expenses, as opposed to some made up lower number that you believe will keep the IRS happy. Or like some other lucky boardies here, move to a place like Hong Kong, Singapore, or some other exotic places where there are no capital gains taxes at all and then you can sell your collectibles for hundreds of thousands of dollars and pocket the whole entire amount for yourself.

Third of all...................CGC might actually grade this if you ask them nicely.

I am 110% confident that this copy here will have absolutely no problems at all punching its way right through the now piddly $22,500 it managed to sell for in the big Jon Berk auction back in 2017. Especially since Heritage was able to auctioned off a lower graded CGC 4.0 copy for back in September of last year and CC was able to fetch $55K for the highest graded CGC 8.0 copy baxck in 2018 before this current huge runup in prices since the pandemic started. Will definitely be watching with great anticipation to see where this one finishes up at. Based upon your avatar, I certainly hope that you have one of these nicer copies locked up in your personal collection already.

Not exactly sure what you mean when I see a whole lot more there with the Action 1 than what I am seeing with these graded ones here: I challenge anybody here to be able to tell us the difference bewtween a CGC 1.0 graded copy from a CGC 10.0 graded copy. It's all really a case of to each their own, but I still find it rather kind of absurb that some potential buyers are apparently willing to bid up to 5 figures for some of these CGC graded and slabbed so-called "disappearing and invisible books" here. Well, I guess it makes perfect sense if I get to pay with my "disappearing and invisible" money then.

You'd just cheap out again. Surprisingly even to myself, I actually brought more books from that one single auction and spent far far more money than on all other auctions combined during the past 10 years. Knowing now after the fact how the auction played out in the end, I definitely would have bidded a lot higher on some of those early almost impossible to acquire Amazing Mystery Funnies that went on the first day. At the time back then though, I figured I better hold back and keep some of my powder dry since there was still another 4 days to go with a whole ton more quality books yet to come. Now, if I had your kind of comic book spending budget, it would have been no problem at all picking up books.

Yes indeed, a totally awesome book and a seemingly almost forgotten SUPER KEY Centaur first appearance book as it hardly ever appears in the marketplace. From looking at the CGC Census Population Report, it looks like the highest graded copy to date would be the Church Mile High copy at an upgraded CGC 8.0 , as this what the book looked like in its original CGC 5.5 graded slab when it was sold at Heritage in one of their first auctions for only $4,255 way back in March of 2003: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/funny-pages-v2-10-mile-high-pedigree-centaur-1938-cgc-fn-55-white-pages-whether-gerber-s-rare-or-overstreet-s-scar/a/806-3148.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 Big congrats to you on your outstanding copy at it looks like it's still the second highest graded Universal copy at CGC 6.5, with the 3rd highest graded being only a CGC 5.5 and all other remaining graded copies coming in at much lower grades than that. So, not only a book that is extremely tough to find in any condition, but like hen's teeth and virtually impossible to find in high grade, with the CGCdata.com website indicating that the Church copy was upgraded back in the first half of 2008 with what must have been quite a bit of quality work done from looking at that original Heritage archived image here.

Did you hire a "fly by night" accountant as I thought you would have to pay capital gains taxes to the IRS only on the profit which you made after selling your books, as opposed to having to give all 100% of your profit to them?

But hasn't this pretty much always been the case for seemingly decades now, as I remember the same comments being thrown around back in the 90's about the big time dealers and long before the comic specialty auction houses arrived on the scene.

Good catch here, but since it is graded as only a CGC 0.5 Incomplete Poor condition copy, maybe this is allowed in this particular grade? Nevertheless, this is clearly a defect that was most likely missed by the CGC graders as it is not mentioned as part of the label notes on the slab, and hence the reason why it was also missed by Heritage in their Auction Preview description notes for the book here.

Most certainly did and like you correctly stated, they clearly did mentioned the fact that the early books prior to the prime 1943 time period of the collection were low grade. That was only a small snippet of the video and interview though, as the majprity of the time was spent more on trying to leave the viewer or reader with the distinct impression in their mind that this Promise pedigree collection was second only to the Edgar Church collection. From a pure title and content quality POV, that is a total stretch of the imagination, as it is much closer to either the Davis Crippen or Big Apple pedigrees which they did not bothered to point out. Especially considering that the 2 biggest books to emanate from the Promise Collection would now be the Phantom Lady 17 and 'Tec 140 which is pretty much light years apart from the virtually countless major major keys in grade to emanate from the Church collection. As everybody here knows, the early Church books were also of lower grade quality as they were brought second hand, but I don't remember any of the Church pre-hero DC's or the very early Church Centaurs being this low grade as these 2 early key Promise Collection books. I also remember Ed clearly opining that he expected nearly a full 2/3 of the books contained within the Promise Collection to stand as the highest graded copy. And yet now there's talk that the next Signature Auction will be the last one for the Promise Books, leaving the remaining 1,800 books or thereabouts most likely having not much chance at all of being the highest graded copy. Now, I certainly would not go so far as some other boardies here, who have stated that they would take the very small, but very high quality (both content and condition wise) 135 Allentown Collection pedigree books over the entire 5,000 Promise Collection pedigree books. Then again, considering the time period and the significant keys contained within the Allewntown pedigree and in that type of condition, it's certainly food for thought though.

I assume you would be referring to these 2 books from the "top tier almost Church-like worthy pedigree with consistently high grades" which both Lon Allen & Ed Jaster had alluded to in their overly hyped videos and interviews when talking about the Promise Collection books:

Would you be referring to a key like this even if it was chomped and chewed all the way down to a miniscule size like this book here: I wonder how they were able to ascertain that the pages for this copy here were White Pages or is that part just invisible?

My thoughts exactly Are you guys referring to the CL Featured Auction coming up in February or to the next CC Event Auction since this is a CC thread here?

I guess you must be referring to this copy of U.S. Jones 2 with the classic Nazi WWII cover and a much much tougher book than U.S. Jones 1: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/us-jones-2-fox-features-syndicate-1942-cgc-fn-55-off-white-to-white-pages/a/122205-19840.s?ic4=OtherResults-SampleItem-071515&tab=ArchiveSearchResults-012417 Looks like it has already hit Heritage's prescient auction listing description of this book coming in at more than 10X condition guide as it's already touching on 5-figures with another 2 days to go. Then again, not really that much of a surprise considering how super rare and tough it is to find a copy of this book here with only 4 Universal unrestored copies on the census. It also looks like the purchaser of Jon Berk's highest graded Church copy at CGC 8.0 must be absolutely ecstatic when they purchased it for what now appears to be a bargain basement price of only $13,800 back in the summer of 2017. I guess this goes to confirm that there are some diamonds in the rough just waiting to be mined in some of these later Fox books. Some of the tougher ones and the ones that are also extremely HTF, if not impossible, to find in grade are the very few issues of Mystery Men and Wonderworld's that were not present in the Edgar Church collection. Books such as Mystery Men 22 & 23 and Wonderworld 24 with census counts in the same ballpark as this U.S. Jones 2, but yet still only maxes out in only mid-grade condition in terms of highest graded copies to date. If only we could have a repeat performance or a second shot at some of these books from the Jon Berk Collection.

Sounds as though the rest of these might end up in their weeky Sunday/Monday auctions then, which means the bargain hunters might just have a shot at a few of them. So much for their initial hype and claim on that video about 2/3 or 3/4 of the collection expected to be the highest graded copies, although they certainly did tried their best whether it be by hook or by crook. If this is the actual case with what we've seen so far, then this collection is actually light years away from the Edgar Church Collection which they kept comparing it to, as it certainly did come in with a big bang, but out with rather a soft whimper. I guess we will now see if @Mmehdy's prediction that prices will now skyrocket on these Promise Collection books once Heritage is done with them actually comes true or not. Or will all of the interest and money be redirected to whatever new collection Heritage is able to latch their hands onto, like the current Black Cat Collection or the Alfred Pennyworth that came just before the Promise Collection? I guess it's just a matter of waiting to see what will great new collection will come next from the gang at Heritage.

For sure when it comes to that absolutely gorgeous FF 213 cover, as that is very definitely Wally Woodesque through and through.

Yeah, no worries here as that's just Fiction House chipping, similar to Marvel chipping which the CGC graders tend to go very lightly on.

And of course, nobody wants to be left out of the Frazetta Famous Funnies party, so here's 2 copies of Famous Funnies 209 (with one of them being the Twin Cities pedigree copy) that CC has up so far, with hopefully more to come as their upcoming auction still seems to be a work in progress, which actually probably applies for all 3 of the major auction houses right now: https://www.comicconnect.com/item/943086 https://www.comicconnect.com/item/917820

And not to be outdone, it appears that CL also has a couple of sharp looking Frazetta Famous Funnies books in their next auction starting in February: https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FFocusedOnly%3D1%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3Dfamous%2Bfunnies%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1549510&id=1549510&itemType=0 https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FFocusedOnly%3D1%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3Dfamous%2Bfunnies%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1530780&id=1530780&itemType=0