sfcityduck

To paraphrase Spock and Kirk, sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the desires of the one.

No. It ensures that the criminal and terrorist damage from crypto currency will continue to happen - as I've already and can continue to document. Proving my argument. It's also irrelevant to this debate. That you want to lump Action 1 in with cryptocurrency makes me think that you don't really care about the impact of your proposal on the comic collecting hobby - which is all that I care about.

That is why his idea is bad for comic collecting. It eliminates the entire reason for collecting. He seems to think that comics will retain their value if everything that is cool about collecting a comic is stripped away. The reality is that the entry of pure investors into golden age collecting has often led to unfounded inflation and subsequent devaluation of the books they bought. IMHO, fractional ownership would risk that on steroids.

There is no logic to this comment. Crypto currency should not be allowed. So that blows up your argument.

If this is just about money, which is what this comment suggests, I'd recommend you buy stock options instead of a share of an asset. You are acting as if this is a principle. It's not. You can't own a lot of things because they are unaffordable to you (and most everyone else). While it is true one way around that impediment is to form an investment group, you don't seem willing to put in that effort. So instead, you want to reduce ownership of an Action 1 to the lowest common denominator. I don't see that as desirable from the perspective of caring about comic collecting as a hobby, as opposed to one individual's personal satisfaction. If you want to argue that, then let's stop the FOMO comparisons to stock and crypto currency which don't really work and move on to talking about comic collecting.

You are arguing fractional ownership of comic books, in form of a $100 share of a $2M Action 1, is good for your personal satisfaction because you will (1) be able to state you own an Action 1 and (2) will be able to partake in the upward appreciation. I am arguing that such fractional ownership is going to have adverse consequences for the comic collecting market you don't intend, which I think are bad for the comic collecting hobby and community. I think this has nothing to do with crypto currency at all because it is an entirely different beast. You seem to be lumping "investing" in an Action 1 in with a bunch of things that are not remotely similar. Like investing in stocks, buying crypto currency, investing in and running a comic book dealership, etc. None of those are similar to fractional ownership of comics. They involve distinct financial factors.

Which I am arguing is (1) irrelevant to Action 1 collecting and (2) is bad as a matter of public policy. We are way off on a tangent. The fact you are equating fractional ownership of comics with buying cryptocurrency is not an argument that persuades me that fractional ownership of comics is a good thing. I think we need to get off this digression and bring the topic back to comics. Taken together, your argument that "businesses are traded fractionally through stocks" and "crypto currency is traded electronically" come across to me as just a bit of jealousy that has nothing to do with comic collecting. You are right that comics are now presently traded like stocks or crypto currency. So what? I don't get the fear of missing out (FOMO) aspect of your argument.

We just have to agree to disagree. Right now, the only defense of crypto you've offered is that it is a "hedge against inflation." So are comics. But crypto currency is not a collectible. It is something far more helpful to criminals and terrorists. It really should not exist as the public policy ramifications are all bad. And, no, not all crypto currency transfers are reported to the IRS, so it is also an avenue for criminal tax evasion.

New cryptocurrencies are like a new vacuum. It's a tool. Some of the new tools (a Dyson) might actually work better than the old Hoover. You are acting as if crypto currency is a collectible. Crypto is not a "collectible." That is not its value. It's value is the ability to move money in a "dark" way. Bitcoin is the present choice for high value money movement because its price is already inflated. It's not good for small value movement. In time that will change as other currencies compete with Bitcoin on that basis and Bitcoin price will be impacted. It is as vulnerable to inflation (e.g. minting of money) as any currency - more vulnerable actually, because Bitcoin's value comes from its format not the country whose assets and stability support it. The U.S. dollar is only impacted by the minting of U.S. dollars. Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies can be impacted by every other crypto currency.

My view is that is a bad idea for both because it could adversely impact prices by dilluting the "coolness" of owning an Action 1.

Your top bullet above is wrong because of what you state in the second bullet. "Coolness" is everything in the comic market. There is nothing else driving prices.

Do you see the disconnect in your above comments? Bitcoin and Litecoin (and all the other crypto currencies) are the EXACT SAME THING. Bitcoin is nothing special, it was just first. All the other cryptos do the exact same thing. It has no inherent value. It is just a tool. Thus the various crypto currencies are and increasingly will impact each other's price. You have just documented litecoin underpricing Bitcoin. That's called "minting money." The difference between crypto and real currency, is that real currency is controlled by central banks who have a strong incentive to not "mint money" at an excessive rate to cause unhelpful inflation, whereas all the new crypto companies have a strong incentive to mint/mine as much crypto as they can.

True. But, the guys selling you the stock are making that market, not the investors. My own view is that folks who make money by working their butts off should be taxed at an equal or lower rate than folks who make money through passive investing. Our tax system is the opposite.

I think you are missing an important point: Stock price can fluctuate based on market information and investor misperception of actual value, but the stock price corrects when more accurate information comes out to its actual fundamental value. In contrast, an Action 1 has no actual fundamental value independent of buyer perceptions. So an Action 1 is uniquely vulnerable to years and years of movement based on "coolness" which could collapse if a major aspect of the books disappears (such as being part of a small ownership group). Let me be clear: * I am not denying you can create fractional ownership of anything. You clearly can. * I am saying owning one of 100,000 shares in an Action 1 is not "collecting" in any real sense of the word. * I am saying that such fractional ownership could have an adverse impact on the comic market and erode the "coolness" of owning an Action 1. * I am saying that such fractional ownership is not analogous to owning stocks because stocks do have a fundamental value independent of investor perceptions and market corrections are frequent. * I am saying that I find fractional ownership a bad idea for "investors" and "collectors" and the hobby.

The only thing public is that a transaction occurred. Who paid or received the "currency" is not public at all. All paper currency also has serial numbers. There is no difference between the ability to record the serial numbers of an extortion payoff made with paper money and one made with cryptocurrency. The point is that with bitcoin, there is no need for a physical exchange of the type we use to see in old movies about ransom/hostage exchanges. Today, the money gets transferred digitally.

The guys who are buying and selling Action 1 for a living are not passive investors. They work their buts off getting to know their market of buyers and sellers, developing that market by cultivating new buyers, developing their opportunities to acquire Action 1s or handle consignments by cultivating sellers, and doing other things which have grown the hobby for the average joe collector who does nothing more than buy/sell to a dealer or on eBay etc. Guys like Fishler and several of the boardies on this site are "market makers" and "market cultivators." The best way to make money off of comics is to handle the transactions, not own the comics. The company making the most money off our hobby is Heritage. It is like the California gold rush, the minors made little, but the businesses selling those minors food, supplies, and providing services made a killing.

Company valuation is far different than that. We see it when there are mergers an acquisitions. The company gets a valuation based on fundamentals, a valuation which is often different than the value your simple reference to stock price would indicate. To be clear, stock price often moves based on investor views of future value. That is different than present value. The classic "tell" is when a company beats its earnings projection and the stock price declines.

And I'd like a Winter home in Martis Camp. Sometimes we don't get what we want. And for good reason. An Action 1 is a luxury item. It is not an income producing business.

This post is flat wrong. Cryptocurrency has NO public ledger tying owners to the currency. That is, in fact, the whole point. It is a "currency" which is tradeable with no tracing to owners. Which is why bitcoin is the the preference for criminals and terrorists who want pay-offs for cyber crimes. An example, several years ago hackers took over remote control of a dam. They threatened to open the flood gates if they were not paid $Xmillion in bitcoin. Dam company tendered to its cyber insurer who made the payment. This is not a rare event, although most escape the public eye. One that didn't is this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/colonial-pipeline-ceo-tells-why-he-paid-hackers-a-4-4-million-ransom-11621435636 Let me ask you this: What value does cryptocurrency have other than its suitability for "dark web" activities and engaging in criminal tax avoidance? What do you think is driving its "value"?

Investment banks have looked at creating "comic book mutual funds." If I recall, board members have been consulted in connection with such schemes. But, the conclusion is that the market for comics is far too tiny to make a mutual fund viable. There's simply not enough value in comic book assets to make that play profitable or significant enough. So the answer to your question is not what you'd expect - supply drives up price - it is a stagnant market. We see this is in comic collecting all the time. Lots of comics are much rarer than an Action 1. You can make arguments that they should be much higher priced than they are because of that rarity. But, rare comics are rarely bought or sold, so prices don't get laddered up the way we've seen with more plentiful comics (e.g. a Hulk 181). Lack of supply can have the opposite effect from that which you view as inevitable.

Bad analogy. I'm an attorney who was involved in the Enron Litigation. The problems with Enron were legion, predominantly business structure aided and abetted by accounting firms and investment banks. It didn't help that the business model was based, in part, on a fraudulent manipulation of the energy market. Which is why Enron devolved into litigation and the plaintiff shareholders who sued Enron, its directors and officers, its accountants, and its banks ultimately recovered billions of dollars in settlements. During that same time period, I could name a host of stocks which have out-performed Action 1. If you asked me whether a fractional ownership business is closer to Enron or closer to the solid companies whose stock price legitimately has boomed, I'd be saying "Enron."

Except "investing" in art and comics is not the same cat as investing in a stock. You invest in a stock based on certain economic fundamentals. A stock certificate is a fractional ownership interest in a business. And businesses generate income without the necessity of selling the business. And stocks like Apple, to use your example, pay a dividend to the holder of the stock. So you can make money off of a stock without having to sell the stock (and without the business having to sell itself). In contrast, you buy art and comics based on either your personal preferences or your bet on other people's personal preferences. Art and comic prices are only supported by taste. And art and comics normally only generate income when you sell the art and the comics off. So fractional ownership of art or comics is different in kind from fractional ownership of a business. Which begs the question: What does drive art and comic prices to such absurd heights? I believe a significant factor is boasting rights (especially when the comic is entombed in plastic). And fractional ownership is going to erode that aspect of collecting. If everyone's special, than no one is.

Crypto currency only has real tangible value to criminals and terrorists. That's where the value comes from. Everyone else is just along for the ride. It has no analogy to a stock or fractional ownership of a tangible asset. Crypto technology has lots of tangible value for use as a tool, most obviously in the realm of security. But that's an entirely different animal from the currency.

Fractional digital ownership is not collecting. It is not even ownership of a physical piece of an Action 1 (like the board member who owns a the piece of the cover with the "1"). All you own is a non-tangible "right" to some payoff if the underlying book ever is sold. But, the way the Evangelists talk on this site it is as if you really do own an Action 1 in the sense that a collector thinks of ownership. That's not the reality. You can't read it, touch it, or even sell it if you are a fractional owner. But, we're going to hear a lot of folks claim they own an Action 1 when they really don't. It brings to mind the line from The Incredibles that "if everyone's special, than no one is." When the world has tens of thousands of people claiming they "own" an Action 1, it risks dampening the upside of owning an Action 1 which, let's be real, is largely based on the boasting rights of being a member of a small group.

Fresh Back from CGC, first to be graded, top of census, iconic pop culture, unknown to most: I just love this Census entry: