lou_fine

Hate to break the news to you, but I guess you hadn't noticed that the war had already started almost a couple of years ago by now. Around the time that the other company started to have a bigger foothold in the marketplace, CGC took the quick and easy business approach and simply "weaponized" their grades to ensure they would get back their market share and more.

That's it in a nutshell.

Are you saying that you love female giraffes then?

Are you quite sure about this as I though thought that there is a relationship between climate change and global warming to both hurricanes and wildfires. Doesn't global warming result in retention of more moisture and therefore more extreme rainfall. This is also coupled with warmer oceans which then results in increased intensity of the hurricanes. Likewise, global warming apparently results in dry areas becoming even drier which then brings about not only more wild fires, but ones with both greater intensity and longer duration. So, it sounds like it's only going to get worse going forward as the government also believes there is no such thing as climate change and global warming, as it is just another scam made up by the Chinese to prevent America from becoming great again.

Hopefully he's not the type of dealer that has a disclaimer that slabbed books are not subject to return, which is actually common with some of the dealers.

I guess this would only apply for their Exchange listed books. If you go back into their website and try to find the books which went through their auctions, they are pretty much instantly gone once the auction is over. No chance to search their auction history or even to find any paper trail at all which you can do for Heritage through their auction archives or somewhat clumsily with CC through their auction emails.

Since I don't follow the sports card market, what exactly is this BCCG model and how would it apply to the comic book market?

Careful, my friend, politics on the boards is frowned upon, unless it involves punching Hitler. Hitler punching is always welcome. Exactly why I mentioned comic books in my statement above. And the eventual disposal of your comic book collection in such a way as to legally avoid having to pay income taxes should be useful information for all of the board members here.

I should've used the Captain America cover with the big chest. That came from hell... No, that one came from a place far deeper and scarier than Hell.

Looks like Heaven to me. One to one for both sides as it looks totally disproportionate and unrealistic to any known thing on this planet. More like an animal than a real human being from its appearance. But then again, to each their own, I would guess.

Which is why public policy minded folks like Buffet and Gates oppose elimination of the Estate Tax despite the fact it would save them many billions in taxes. The public policy intent of the Estate Tax is, in part, was to preserve the American Dream by eroding some of the barriers to upward social mobility that arise when a class of "landed gentry" is created and allowed to gain ever increasing concentration of the nation's wealth. I guess that's why it's better for the wealthy to live in a capitalistic society like America where you are taxed on only 20% of your declared capital gains, whereas you are taxed on 50% of your declared capital gains in a socialistic society like Canada. I guess it would be good for long time collectors like the Dentist and Veryzl who would otherwise have to pay outrageous taxes on any books they sell, but have the ability to eliminate any taxes payable if they pass it onto their heirs after they are gone. Same with people like the current owners of these tech companies who would be able to pass their fortunes down to their heirs totally tax free, with both the deceased or the heirs not having to pay taxes on any of the gains accumulated to that point in time. The rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

Since slabbed books normally tends to sell for more money, then you should probably get the raw one slabbed to see where it comes in on the grading scale. Since the Hulk 181 is a definitely long time key, you should then sell off the lower grade copy and hold onto the higher grade copy since it should continue to go up in value over the long term. If it was a hyped movie related book such as Marvel Preview 4, Iron Man 55, NM 98, or anything like that you should sell the higher grade copy and keep the lower grade copy since it might not even retain its current value over the long term. If they both come out as graded 4.0 copies, I guess it's up to you to decide if the signature has any sentimental value to you, or if you think it adds any resale value to the book, or if it will be seen as a negative. Especially since lots of collectors out there don't care to have Signature books, as they see them as almost being defaced.

Started a few years ago. When I watched the one collector who is slipping my mind start unloading all of his BA horror runs, I took notice. Since then a few people have cashed out (quietly or otherwise). Which makes me wonder about the stability of the hobby. If you are a collector, common books are cheap as dirt, but keys are insanely high. Clearly there are different kinds of "collectors" here with completely different mind sets when it comes to the collecting of comic books. You've got the new generation of CGC collectors who are just so into the CGC Registry that it seems they are really collecting CGC labels as opposed to collecting the underlying comic books themselves. I believe the mind set of these collectors is much more about the grade and the subsequent value of their books and how much they can sell it for. Probably a mind set more like a speculator or investor and these so-called collectors are usually never really in the hobby for a long time, as they are just looking to make some money and jump back out into something else. On the other side, you have the long-time collectors who have been around long before CGC was even a thought in anybody's mind. These types of collectors have most likely never even gone into the Registry portion of the CGC website. They also couldn't give a hoot about it or most likely don't even know about it at all as all of their books are still raw. Especially since they see no reason at all to slab their books yet as they don't have any intention of selling them anytime soon.

Steve Ivy is as well. CGC = HA, guys, always has been Yes, nothing new at all and the reason why there were screams of potential conflict of interest right from the get go. Similar to the screams of conflict of interest when CCG brought out CCS and included them under their umbrella of companies.

Under U.S. tax law, when you die, for tax purposes the value of an asset you leave to your heirs "steps up" or increases to the asset's FMV at the time of your death. See the Action 1 example in my previous post. Whatever you -- the dead person -- paid for the Action 1 is irrelevant to your heirs' tax situation. The basis for the capital gains tax your heirs pay when they sell the Action 1 is FMV on the day you died, not the price you paid for it decades ago. (Again, I throw in the caveat that I'm not an accountant, but this is my understanding of U.S. tax law.) Canadian law may be different. Well, this is definitely very interesting. Sounds to me like this is just another huge tax avoidance shelter for the wealthy class then. Especially if the Trump tax changes passes and all estate taxes are also eliminated. Sounds very unfair, but what else is new, that the wealthy can pass millions upon millions down to their heirs, whether it be in the form of property holdings, investment comic books, fine art, equity stock portfolios, etc. without having to incur any taxes on the gains, while the working class trudges along paying the bill for everything.

No tax expert here, but this does not appear to be correct. Are you guys trying to say there is no capital gains taxes if the asset (i.e. comic books in this case) passes to your children? This does not sound right as I believe they would still be liable for the resulting capital gains once they sell the asset, even if there are no estate taxes. Otherwise, why would anybody sell their comics when they are in retirement stage and have to pay taxes on it, when they can simply pass it onto their children tax free after they are gone?

If I remember correctly, isn't there already an indirect or minority ownership relationship between the 2 companies?

Unless you bid on them. The only problem with this strategy is that you could end up bidding too late with your tracking bid and end up winning a book which you had no real intention of buying in the first place.

Looks like I am going to have to go with Gene on this one here, especially if you are hoping for the people from China to buy your AF 15's. I know a lot of people from China and I haven't heard a single one of them mention comic books, or for that matter, any of the biggies such as Spider-Man, Superman, or even Batman. And I know that Tim recently picked up the Church copy of Mystery Men 3 for $57K, but that doesn't really count since he's from Hong Kong and also a long-time collector and board member here. The only topic the Chinese population loves to talk about is real estate and property. Especially with respect to my better half and most of her friends from China who does nothing but about the same old boring topic all day. She tends to natter on every day about the missed opportunities since many of them are putting down payments on pre-built condos and then flipping them for hundreds of thousands of dollars profit before they are even actually built. Rather depressing for long-time collectors like myself when even a life long collection, similar to Jon Berk's entire collection, might possibly be good enough to pay for a nice big house on the west side of the city, but nothing actually really spectacular or brand new for that matter. But it's still so much more enjoyable to talk about AF 15's and comic books in general, as opposed to yet another dirty piece of land with a run down house on it.

Why, is the price for gasoline in California the same now as it was when the price for a barrel of oil was touching $100? It is where I live give or take probably a drop of only 5% on a lucky day, from when oil was at a $100 a barrel. Somebody must be making a ton of money on the poor consumers up here.

Sorry to hear about your loss, although it sounds like the bulk of your books made it through just fine. Sounds like you had some pretty nice indie books in there with the Towers and the Gold Keys. Were there also some of the Total War / Mars Patrol in there since I absolutely loved that series of books?

The only problem with ComicLink and it is a major one at that, is that you will not be able to access any of their auction results once the auction is over.

Unfortunately for all of us here, inconsistency in grading is to be expected and totally understandable due to any and all of the following factors: - grading is a completely subjective process, as opposed to being a scientific or objective process; - CGC's grading standards are unpublished and as such, can change over time for any of the following reasons: - a change in their grading teams; - an ever changing shift in their business agenda; - in response to what is happening with their competitors and market share; - being a business, also in response to what is happening with both their top and bottom line; and - undisclosed and subtle, but critical changes in how specific defects affects the final grade to address the above concerns. I am sure that I must be missing a few, but the bottom-line is that the hobby and the marketplace are both still far and away better served with having the grading companies here, than without having them here. You just have to know that nothing is ever perfect and as long as you are aware of the shortfalls, you should be able to roll with the punches.

That's what I figured since the cover just looked so glowingly bright in comparison to the CC scan. Of course, from what I hear, CC's scans tends to make their books appear worse than what they actually are in real life.

If you are the avid collector and see the disposal of your collection as a big headache, just imagine how your novice uninterested daughter would feel if all of this "inventory" was dumped onto her lap to take care of. Hopefully, she won't have to worry about this for a few more decades yet.