High end book fractional ownership 1 1

[Mercury Man]

1 minute ago, valiantman said:

I believe Gretzky loaned the Honus Wagner to Wal-Mart for a nationwide tour.

Wiki'd this:     Gretzky resold the card four years later to Walmart and Treat Entertainment for $500,000 for use as the top prize in a promotional contest.

[James J Johnson]

16 minutes ago, Mercury Man said:

Wiki'd this:     Gretzky resold the card four years later to Walmart and Treat Entertainment for $500,000 for use as the top prize in a promotional contest.

That card, the infamous trimmed PSA 8 one (highest graded, PSA serial number 0000001 was later sold (at auction) for $2.8 Million. Of note is that record has been broken, not by the same trimmed PSA 8 (which was not disclosed by PSA) card, but by a different Wagner, a PSA graded 5, which is not trimmed, for $3.12 Million. 

And if you think trimming is a big problem a it relates to the comic hobby, it's a flea on the back of an elephant compared to what goes on in the card hobby, and that's just as far as professionally graded cards go, where it's supposed to be caught, and isn't, for one reason...…………….. or another.

There are two dozen well known trimmers, bleachers, and outright card replicators routinely passing their stuff through the grading services. There are now plenty of sites relating to this, many with before and after photos, if anyone cares to look. It's pretty much common knowledge now that even in the slabs, the fakes and restored cards are a huge percentage of the whole and growing every day.

Edited February 14, 2020 by James J Johnson

[James J Johnson]

3 hours ago, D84 said:

But, how do know the Detective 27 you own 1-10% of even exists?  Do you get physically see it before investing?  What assurances are there?

This would be so easy to rip people off.

This.  It's ideal for fraud. Be perfect for a Madoff model if he had dealt in comics. And at some point, a fire? A theft? IMO, it's ill advised and I'd have to be fractionally insane or fractionally lost my will to live to send money that can be best spent on my own collection for fun and investment instead of others' collections; collections that can "disappear into thin air" at any time..

Edited February 14, 2020 by James J Johnson

[oakman29]

7 hours ago, Action252Kid said:

Not sure if anyone mentioned this one yet, but this is already being done on Rally Rd, isn't it?  Or I think they're about to have a few comics go live on there.

It sounds dumb, but they had a Honus Wagner card on there a few weeks back and I bought "10 shares" of it (each share is worth 1/10,000th of the card) for $52 each.  So they were valuing the card at $520,000.  I think they lay out the rules for how they'd actually sell the underlying asset, but I think they idea is more so that you are just trading shares back & forth, more like a stock.

It's kind of a cool idea.  They seem to mostly have sports items (cards, game worn jerseys, etc.), but I've seen cars, watches, and there's a ASM #1 CGC 6.5 (valuing it at $22k) coming up for trading soon.  And a Batman #3 CGC 9.4 (valuing at $78k) coming up soon.

Good luck getting your money back.