sfcityduck

Or the seller timed it great.

There's also the MH/Church out there (Dentist?), the SF, and there's also two 9.0s that maybe were upgrade candidates.

My only Swedish comic book:

Something to ponder: Robin had more GA appearances than Batman, and he didn't even make it into Detective Comics until 11 issues after Batman.

Speaking of the complete DC collection, here's Ian with the trophy books and cruxes: I've got the book immediately above his left (our right) shoulder if you want to get started buying the very rare DCs. Here's another view of that "crux" book between the GL 1 and All Flash 1:

None of that applies to comics. You better watch out because you are definitely getting political.

I agree, but tell it to the mods who have warned me and others.

Its only 1,000 or so comics a year since he started buying 40+ years ago. That's less than 4 a day. He could easily have read them all. And there is the enjoyment is checking off a box on a list. This is about the size of a complete DC collection.

You know, that movie director.

We are talking about passive investments generally, and comic book investments specifically. We were not talking only about stocks. But, this portion of the conversation has been shut down by the mods as "political," so I cannot respond, other than to note that the difference in a stock price (which is all a buyer who then seller pays taxes on) is not impacted by taxes at all. The taxes are baked in when the buyer buys, and the taxes don't increase just because the stock price increases before the buyer sells.

Or you could just tell us what the comic is and see what folks think it might be worth. You will undoubtedly get all sorts of valuation methodologies.

It would be more helpful to know if similar books sold recently in that grade. For example, if comic X has a Schomburg or L.B. Cole cover, what are similar comics selling for? Could be adjacent issues, could be different titles in the same time frame, could be same content of cover, etc.

Or the Miller comic book!

My analysis assumes the seller negotiated his way out of paying any seller's premium (which may not be true). But, there was a disclosure that there was a buyer's premium.

The D27 was purchased for $492,938 on 11/19/2011 and the owner received $1,250,000 on 11/19/2020. That an increase of 2.54x. Over the same time period, the Dow is up an equivalent amount of 2.67x and the S&P is up 2.8x. Obviously, many individual stocks and funds beat the Dow and S&P and many did not. Measured as an investment, the D27 was well within the range of a stock market return. In short, it was a legit investment which, while maybe nowhere near as good as owning Google/Alphabet (up 5.42x) was still a rate of return which kept pace with the usual retirement investments people make. Could you make more money in the top tech stocks? Yes. But you would not have had the joy of owning a D27. My takeway: Buy a comic because you love it, but realize it is not a "waste" of your money as it can garner returns in line with 401K returns.

Easy fix. Send your books to me, then forget you did so.

What was the BP on the D27? I'm trying to ascertain if outperformed the Dow as an investment.

Better watch out - we're not supposed to talk about taxes. Someone thinks it is too "political."

No reason to believe that there is a need to draw money out of "stagnant accounts." The days of getting good interest on a savings account are dead. Everyone can invest today. Lowering workers' taxes will lead to more money in retirement accounts. And we also want to encourage spending, and working folks spend a lot. So there's no reason to favor passive over active income. It is all just income.

The only imped $10M would have bought you Ian Levine's complete DC collection not too long ago. Which means you can piece one together for less. A complete Marvel collection is much cheaper. By comparison, that same amount might buy you the best Action 1. So the age old debate is always quality versus quantity. I would focus on what rock climbers call the cruxes. Cruxes sometimes are keys, but not always. The cruxes are the books that actually are hard to find. You get the cruxes, and you can always pick up the other stuff later. There are very very few truly rare DC comics, and there aren't any truly rare Marvel comics (I am talking about "newsstand" editions you could buy at a store, not manufactured collectibles, promos, giveaways, etc.). So I would go for the rarest comics first. And if money was an object, I would not worry about grade for the big books. Ian Levine was well off, but he bought a lot of lower graded comics. I would focus on DC, because having a complete Marvel collection (I assume you are excluding Atlas and Timely) is not a challenge and I suspect many folks have or have had those. Only two people have obtained complete DC collections. So why not aim for the more impressive focus? There are smaller challenges that might be more satisfying and are still impressive - like getting every comic mentioned in SOTI. Only one guy has done that, and barring the discovery of another copy of the crux comic, that club can only grow by one person as far as I know. Or you could chase every LB Cole cover or every Baker cover etc. Tough callenges but impressive if completed. Still, there are crux books in those pursuits also which make them harder, I think, then a complete Marvel collection. If you are going to pursue the challenge of going after an open ended target like DC, you better stay current. And I would crowd source the search. That's what Ian did using these boards. He had folks wanting to help him out with leads, and I'm sure he got some discounts by those sympathetic to his pursuit. I know I sold the last comic SOTIcollector needed to complete his SOTI collection for less than I could have to others because I thought he deserved to meet his goal. Of course, if money's no object, you probably aren't going to be chasing comics. Comic collectors generally don't fall into that category. Most of the guys with the best collections are dentists or postmen or other non-Billionaire types.

Tax avoidance is legal. But, I don't think it is patriotic. To me, patriotism involves sacrifice for your country. No need to be sensitive. We just disagree.

And vice versa. Without workers, capital cannot be created. So why tax one at a lower rate than the other? In my book, income is income.

Yep. Lots of songs and movies about Patriotic tax avoiders. Personally, I love all those patriotic WWII comics and posters encouraging tax avoidance! LoL!

With all due apologies, but your comment is wholly incorrect. In fact, it is deceptive. First, we are talking about comic books. When a person buys a comic book or other tangible asset subject to a capital gains tax, the comic book or baseball card or art has paid no tax. Your assertion to the contrary is perplexing to say the least. Second, in any event, the same thing is true for a share of stock. When a person buys a share of stock on the open market (meaning not in an IPO), the corporation has no involvement in the transaction. It neither gets any income from the transaction, nor pays any tax on the transaction. So when a shareholder makes money by selling stock, the profits they make are only taxed once. The corporation has paid no taxes in connection with the purchase and sell of its stock in the open markets at all. Third, the profits the shareholder makes on the transaction are entirely unaffected by tax paid by the corporation. When I buy Tesla on Monday and sell on Friday, the appreciation in the value of the company has not been taxed by anyone. And it likely never will be, because we do not tax market cap of a corporation, only its taxable revenue (which may be shockingly small or even negative). And market cap moves without any real impact from taxation, except in very rare circumstances. Fourth, comic books don't pay dividends, but some stocks do. Even so, very few shareholders care about dividends anymore. The real money is in share price appreciation, which is largely not impacted by taxes paid by corporations. So shareholders who sell stocks that declare dividends aren't being taxed twice either. Especially when dividend amounts usually are based on factors independent of the amount of taxes paid by the corporation. No serious person can, with a straight face, not admit that under our system people who make their money through hard work such that they are subject to income tax get taxed at higher rates than people who make their money on passive investments.

I think the top three are locked in stone. I think the next three are subject to debate. I go: Bat 1 MC 1 Cap 1 But, I may someday bump Whiz 2 back up in those 3.