fantastic_four

Meh...my significant other gave me another problem with this. Not only does it encourage an expectation of short-term reward with learning, it also encourages a kid to think of learning something as a chore. That's pretty much how he already looks at learning so it may just keep re-enforcing that mindset as opposed to showing him that learning is something that's enjoyable to do, which is how my daughter looks at learning. Maybe if I give him the choice it would work. So instead of me choosing the tasks, i.e. learn to write your name and put on your own shoes, I let HIM choose the knowledge it would have a better chance of working.

I've got an unboxed Thanos he plays with, and a boxed one of the same figure I picked up on clearance that I'm intending to sell at some point. He asked for the boxed one. So anything that's a duplicate of something you already have. Right now it's action figures, but in a few years it could also be comics that I have multiples of. Was mulling it over and I went ahead and changed the thread title from "extra" collectibles to "duplicate" collectibles. What I mean by "extra" was anything you no longer want, i.e. comics you upgraded the grade on, titles you've lost interest in, books you bought for pure investment purposes because the price was right, etc. Duplicates are only a sub-set of things you intend to sell at some point and the word "extra" is broader, but it is also more confusing because it doesn't explicitly communicate in a single word that it's something you intend to sell.

Preschool age. Starting kindergarten this year. Bagging leaves...hmm. That's kind of perfect, at least for the fall. That one crossed my mind but I thought it might be beyond their ability to concentrate, but if we're clear about FILLING the bag it might work. What size bags? I've always used 30-40 pound bags that are roughly their height, so are you having them fill smaller ones? I thought those would be too big, but we could get smaller ones for kids. Are there any other tasks you've thought of that smaller kids can do? Another thing I thought of last night is intellectual tasks. My daughter is a far more natural learner than my son. She's been reading and writing her own name as well as the names of her immediate family since she was three, she learned her left from her right shoe well over a year ago, and I could keep going, but my son just shows no interest or patience in paying attention to details like that. Everyone has their own interests and he's got plenty of strengths she doesn't have so I'm not worried about him at all, but I maybe I can fast-forward some of his development with ongoing incentives. I could attach a price to learning some of those basic skills it's difficult to get him to focus on, and do something similar for her. But maybe learning in exchange for reward is ultimately counter-productive. The payoff for knowledge is almost always long-term, so attaching rewards to learning could inspire some weird backlash where he won't learn to do (insert idea or task here) unless he gets a short-term reward from it.

Preschool age. Starting kindergarten this year. Bagging leaves...hmm. That's kind of perfect, at least for the fall. That one crossed my mind but I thought it might be beyond their ability to concentrate, but if we're clear about FILLING the bag it might work. What size bags? I've always used 30-40 pound bags that are roughly their height, so are you having them fill smaller ones? I thought those would be too big, but we could get smaller ones for kids. Are there any other tasks you've thought of that smaller kids can do?

I've got an unboxed Thanos he plays with, and a boxed one of the same figure I picked up on clearance that I'm intending to sell at some point. He asked for the boxed one. So anything that's a duplicate of something you already have. Right now it's action figures, but in a few years it could also be comics that I have multiples of.

For a pair of 5 year olds, best answer! Is this under the assumption that it's something a 5-year old can't appreciate or handle without breaking it? Most things I collect that's true of, but in the case of action figures it isn't. Right now that's what he's hunting around the house for, although later it could be everything else I collect. 5-year olds are a prime demographic for them, and Hasbro Marvel Legends are engineered for pretty much the exact use case I'm experiencing here--to be enjoyed both by the parent and the child.

Note that I was only referring to one thing here that I'm torn on--anything I have duplicates of. Usually that goes to sales to fund the collection, but it feels somewhat greedy on my part to not at least OCCASIONALLY give them duplicates, although as I noted if I give one thing I usually have to give two, and I won't always have duplicates of two things to even give. If I could find a way for them to work to earn them I'd be open to giving them everything, because then not only are the collection-funding items going to a good place they're also learning the value of work. Note that I said they're spoiled in the original post, so it's not like they don't already have plenty. Aside from duplicates there's plenty of the lines drawn with my stuff. I don't let them touch statues, or higher-end figures, or even comics aside from low-grade readers. The only reason I even draw these lines is they're too young to not mess them up; if they were older I probably wouldn't even draw these lines assuming they're careful enough. I've dealt with this until now by hiding duplicates intended for sale, but now they're old enough to find them. And they've found them often enough to now my son goes hunting around the house looking for stuff he might want. I'm keeping some stuff well-hidden, and other stuff up higher than he usually can get to--although he's wise to this and has started building ways to climb up, either with footstools, longboxes, or other things that usually can support his weight, but sometimes can't and things come tumbling down. Which means I now have to stop hiding stuff because they're too old for me to do it anymore.

How old are your kids?

Yes and no. They know HUNDREDS of Marvel and DC characters at this point, some of which have cheap alternatives available. Do they know or care about the difference between a NM 9.4 or a VG 4.0 comic? Not really. Do they know the different between a $10 Titan Heroes action figure where the elbows and knees don't articulate, a $20 Marvel Legends with dozens of articulation points, or a $100 to $200 Mafex/Mezco/Sideshow high-end action figure? Nope. But if they see I have two of the same Ultron, or Scarlet Witch, or Sandman, then they know exactly who those characters are because they've seen them in my collection for years now and I usually can't get a cheap version of them. Just hunting for a cheaper version would usually take more time than I would spend just giving them a $20 Marvel Legends figure they've already seen in our house and want.

You even feel that way with your extras? Is that true, or just something you say? Once I upgrade a comic, or if I end up with two of an action figure, usually I don't have an attachment to both, just one or the better of the two. In any event, your "no" answer is what I meant with my first one, you just gave a somewhat different rationale for it.

I have an additional complexity in my case--I have two twins, one boy and one girl. Predictably the girl likes girl superheroes, and the boy likes boy superheroes. If I give one of them something, I immediately have the other one demanding something for themselves. If it's an action figure there just aren't as many female figures to give the girl; roughly 1 in every 4 or 5 that are released are male. That complexity is part of the reason I'm motivated to find some sort of work for them to do to earn the collectible. That way I don't suddenly have to find something to give both of them unless they're both willing to work for it.

I found myself being surprised that this thread has become about how to evade paying income tax on collectibles sales without the IRS knowing it, but then I re-read the title and realized oops, I guess it was about that from the start.

Consider this hypothetical that for many of you I'm sure has been reality--you collect comics or some comic-related collectible like statues or action figures. You end up with multiples of an item, either by design because you're a part-time dealer, by accident, or because you've upgraded one for the other. The reason why isn't all that important, but you've got extra for whatever reason. Your child identifies that you have more than one of the thing and asks if they can have the extra. Assume that you pretty much spoil the kid already, or at least that the kid has plenty of toys and as everyone does they just want more. What do you tell them? I've been expecting this, and this week it finally happened. These are the possible answers I can think of to give: No, you've got plenty of stuff already. Problematic because obviously if you have more than one of something for whatever reason you've probably got far more than they do so it's a response likely to build resentment over time. Yes, you worked for what you have and they haven't yet, but that won't stop the resentment. Yes, it's extra, so sure, take it. Also problematic because they will expect to get any and all extras you ever have, and if you're a part-time dealer or just occasional seller then your kid ends up taking all of your inventory. Yes, but you have to work for it. This is the more balanced response I'd like to go for, but I don't know how to make it work for smaller kids--and my twins are 5 so that's the boat I'm in. How do you handle your kids asking to have some of your stuff for their own? I collect comics, action figures, and statues. I let my 5-year old twins play with the action figures, but not the comics or statues. My kids are the reason I got into action figures...I didn't realize just how awesome they've become over the last few decades, so I'm now selling all my statues and replacing their display space with action figures, which in most cases look better than the statues I'm replacing and are far cooler to display since you can achieve a ton of different poses.

I thought the exact same thing. I was looking closely at his hand looking for blood as the director lingered on his "victory" in catching it. Any films these television series producers are involved in are films I'll be skeptical of.

FWIW...Schedule C net loss has unlimited deductibility against ordinary income. It's even true that you can actually be so negative on Schedule C that you can even go negative on your entire joint return (wiping out two incomes). It's magic! and legal!! (as long as your numbers are real and can survive an audit) Another #win for Schedule C. Back when I posted someone said you can only deduct $3000 of collectibles losses from overall income. I tested that in HR Block and it agreed--when I entered a $5000 loss it only deducted $3000 worth of it. But when I entered a $7000 collectibles gain against a $5000 collectibles loss it did deduct the full loss from the gain, so that $3000 deductible limit only applies to overall income, not collectibles income.

Same. I like Louis-Dreyfuss, but this scene didn't make me like her as Madame HYDRA. Doesn't mean she can't still kill it eventually, but that one scene should have gone unmentioned by the producer because it made me expect more than it provided. Had I not heard him hype it I probably would have enjoyed it more.

I posted this a few weeks ago--HR Block disagrees with this. When you enter collectibles losses from the past year into their software it deducts it from your overall income. If anyone has Turbo Tax I'd be interested to hear if their software does it as well if anyone wants to enter a sample loss in and see if it deducts it from your overall income.

Found a better image--actually they're fist hands, and what looks like a middle finger is the peg that ports into the wrist.

I'm guessing they're pointing finger hands. Past Cap action figures have come with the same hands.

That was leaked a few weeks ago. Not hard to guess and it's barely a spoiler to me since I expect that many of us assumed something like this might be coming, but here's what it is:

The lead designer of Marvel Legends at Hasbro posted pictures of the Haslab Sentinel that will ship in August fighting the recently-released Haslab Transformers Unicron figure. The Sentinel comes with four heads--one regular, one battle-damaged regular, one depicting Master Mold, and one depicting the Tri-Sentinel--and these pics show it with the Master Mold head. Looks great!

Malcolm Spellman wants to see Madame HYDRA team up with an ultra-powerful character like Thor?

All technology is two steps forward and one step back. I could suggest that fire has always been eroding society with its potential to destroy, that the wheel has been destroying society with the number of people killed throughout history, or more presciently that nuclear fission has been destroying society ever since the Manhattan Project, but I don't because I focus on both the two steps forward and the step back simultaneously, not just one or the other.

Hopefully this will incent you to create something with the societal impact that Amazon, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, or Facebook have had.

Yea that $25K example would be a loss that could be deducted from any other profits made during the year.