RallyRd - that old idea about partial ownership of comics is a reality (updated July 21, 2021) 6 6

[blazingbob]

27 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Lots of posts, lots of words, 12 pages into the discussion.

Quick summary of my original thoughts:

 

In stocks, if I have $1,000, I can invest in ANY individual company, big or small, up to $1,000 worth of whatever fraction of a company I can afford.  (Yes, even stocks over $1,000 because fractional shares are a thing now.)  I can sell, digitally, anytime.

In cryptocurrency, if I have $1,000, I can invest in ANY individual crypto, big or small, up to $1,000 worth of whatever fraction I can afford.  I can sell, digitally, anytime.

In mutual funds, if I have $1,000, I can invest in ANY individual fund, big or small, up to $1,000 worth of whatever fraction I can afford.  I can sell, digitally, anytime.

BUT... 

In collectibles, if I have $1,000, I can ONLY invest in collectibles worth $1,000 or less.  I can't sell, digitally, anytime.  I have to wait for a buyer on some platform, ship the collectibles, etc.

Collectibles WILL have a method for investing up to $1,000 in ANY collectible, big or small.  It WILL allow selling, digitally, anytime.

RallyRd might not be that solution, but SOMETHING will be.

 

When that happens, I predict those $1,000 purchases on collectibles currently worth $1,000 or less will shift MANY of those dollars to collectibles worth $100,000 or more. 

Who buys penny stocks when Amazon and Google are available in the same system?  Some do.  Most don't.

If all collectibles are available in the same system, people don't settle for 1st appearance of some Joker knock-off character from the past 30 years.  They'll go after 1st Batman and 1st Joker.  The REAL thing.  Those prices will skyrocket.

Greg, you keep getting excited over this "If all collectibles are available in the same system, people don't settle for 1st appearance of some Joker knock-off character from the past 30 years.  They'll go after 1st Batman and 1st Joker.  The REAL thing.  Those prices will skyrocket."

The underlying asset supporting the share price only rises if another one of those same assets sells for more then what the IPO was priced at.

The "Real thing" Batman #1's,  1st Joker's go up if the Asset manager pays more for them or other collector's do.  As I said on our call,  this works if other buyers "Go first" and raise the asking price of the underlying asset. 

Rallyrd bakes in 20% of the profit out of the gate.  So the underlying asset needs to go up 30% to get you 10%.  So if I invested $100 I made $10. $1000/$100.  Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by blazingbob

[bc]

2 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

Rallyrd bakes in 20% of the profit out of the gate.  So the underlying asset needs to go up 30% to get you 10%.  So if I invested $100 I made $10. $1000/$100.  Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. 

You also need to deduct any ongoing operating costs (insurance, security, storage etc.) from that dreamy profit potential.

[blazingbob]

The other thing that should be clear/noted is that the "share price" of the underlying asset doesn't make it worth more.  A sale of the underlying asset or same grade asset sold somewhere else makes those shares worth more.  

Edited July 27, 2020 by blazingbob

[1Cool]

17 minutes ago, blazingbob said:

The other thing that should be clear/noted is that the "share price" of the underlying asset doesn't make it worth more.  A sale of the underlying asset or same asset sold somewhere else makes those shares worth more.  

That is not how I am reading it.  Every 3 months the share prices will go up (or down) based on the demand on the shares.  If a X-Men 1 that sold out for $20K in shares the book does not need to be worth $30K for the prices in the shares to go up $30 a share.  There just needs to be people waiting in the queue that want to spend $30 a share.  The book will eventually have to sell but the price of the shares are not contingent on the price of the book.  But why would anyone pay $30 a share for a book that is only worth $20 a share?  People are sentimental and don't mind paying more for the thrill of owning a piece of a grail.  I'm not 100% sure they will be able to continually bring in new buyers but they really do not need to have that many new buyers to keep it going for awhile.  If only 15% of people want to sell their shares in the 3 month mark then a few people could theoretically buy up the 15% in shares.  It would be another 3 months to generate another batch of people who want the book at the new price while most people wont be selling for sentimental reasons or do not need the cash.  Kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme where the initial people are the winners and the tail end people are the big losers when the book eventually has to sell or demand tapers off.

Didn't I read with the Jordan card they had to get 60% approval to sell the card?  I'd think you would have a hard time getting 60% of the buyers (assuming the website doesn't hold 50% of the shares) so the sale of the books would be rare especially if the sale of 10-20% of the shares will net a good profit each 3 months (assuming demand keeps exceeding supply).

Edited July 27, 2020 by 1Cool

[bc]

28 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme where the initial people are the winners and the tail end people are the big losers when the book eventually has to sell or demand tapers off.

[Gatsby77]

28 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme where the initial people are the winners and the tail end people are the big losers when the book eventually has to sell or demand tapers off.

I'd go with "ponzi" scheme rather than pyramid, but yeah.

And the interesting thing about ponzi schemes is that people will both continue to buy into them *and* profit from them even if they know it's a ponzi scheme, because they work beautifully as long as you're not the very last out.

[valiantman]

32 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

And the interesting thing about ponzi schemes is that people will both continue to buy into them *and* profit from them even if they know it's a ponzi scheme, because they work beautifully as long as you're not the very last out.

You mean like the comic book industry?  I'm pretty sure Amazing Fantasy #15 has a 12-cent price on the cover.  Someone "ponzi-schemed" their way into 25-cents, then a dollar, and up to $1,000,000 on a 12-cent copy of Amazing Fantasy #15.  Don't be the last one out when it falls back to 12-cents, right?

[valiantman]

1 hour ago, 1Cool said:

Kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme where the initial people are the winners and the tail end people are the big losers when the book eventually has to sell or demand tapers off.

Are you talking about owning shares in key comic books or Tesla?  I'm pretty sure the math on Tesla stock is much, much worse than a 10%-20% premium over the underlying value of the company.

Let's check... the price of the Tesla stock is $753 for every $1 they made last year.  Let's see... carry the four... yes, that's 75,300%.

Edited July 27, 2020 by valiantman

[bc]

But do you really own a share of anything physical or is it just a fee to speculate during the trading windows?

"An investment in an Offering constitutes only an investment in that Series and not in the Company or directly in any Underlying Asset"

"Each Offering entitles a person to acquire an ownership Interest in a Series of the Company and not, for the avoidance of doubt, in (i) the Company, (ii) any other Series of the Company other than the Series of Interests subject to the Offering at that time, (iii) RSEMarkets, Inc. (the “Manager” and the “Asset Manager”), (iv) the Rally™Platform or (v) any Underlying Asset held by each Series of the Company."
 

[D84]

5 minutes ago, bc said:

But do you really own a share of anything physical or is it just a fee to speculate during the trading windows?

"An investment in an Offering constitutes only an investment in that Series and not in the Company or directly in any Underlying Asset"

"Each Offering entitles a person to acquire an ownership Interest in a Series of the Company and not, for the avoidance of doubt, in (i) the Company, (ii) any other Series of the Company other than the Series of Interests subject to the Offering at that time, (iii) RSEMarkets, Inc. (the “Manager” and the “Asset Manager”), (iv) the Rally™Platform or (v) any Underlying Asset held by each Series of the Company."
 

It's obviously a scam.

[Gatsby77]

33 minutes ago, valiantman said:

You mean like the comic book industry?  I'm pretty sure Amazing Fantasy #15 has a 12-cent price on the cover.  Someone "ponzi-schemed" their way into 25-cents, then a dollar, and up to $1,000,000 on a 12-cent copy of Amazing Fantasy #15.  Don't be the last one out when it falls back to 12-cents, right?

That's not how a ponzi scheme works, Greg and you know it.

Here's the ponzi aspect:

The very first time one of these books happens to fall in value below the IPO price, there will be a run on shares. If they haven't actually sold the book yet, they'll literally have to pay out with profits (or money from) from shares of other books. Paying out older investors with money from new investors is the literal definition of a ponzi scheme.

But it's worse than that, because the 20-40% mark-up is baked into the IPO price. The real-world value of the book (say, Captain America 3) doesn't have to fall below the IPO price, it just needs to not sell for 30% *above* the IPO price for 2-3 years.

You've bought in at Captain America # 3, CGC 5.0 at a $37,000 valuation?

Well, last GPA sale (two weeks ago) was for just $23,400. Say the next sale - 9 months from now is for $30,000 - you're still underwater and folks will sell their shares at a loss. But Rally refuses to sell the book, and can't find new suckers willing to buy those shares at the still-inflated price.

They *have* to pay out of proceeds from the CGC 9.0 Daredevil 1 purchase to cover, or (more likely) proceeds from some rare car that's appreciated, etc.

Again, the endgame here is their model only works if they continually convince new people to buy in at 20-40% over FMV. And that's not sustainable in the long term.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Gatsby77

[Gatsby77]

12 minutes ago, bc said:

But do you really own a share of anything physical or is it just a fee to speculate during the trading windows?

"An investment in an Offering constitutes only an investment in that Series and not in the Company or directly in any Underlying Asset"

"Each Offering entitles a person to acquire an ownership Interest in a Series of the Company and not, for the avoidance of doubt, in (i) the Company, (ii) any other Series of the Company other than the Series of Interests subject to the Offering at that time, (iii) RSEMarkets, Inc. (the “Manager” and the “Asset Manager”), (iv) the Rally™Platform or (v) any Underlying Asset held by each Series of the Company."
 

Holy s*$*#_.

Scratch what I just posted. You don't actually own or have any claim to the underlying asset?

This screams money laundering - they can not only manipulate the share price (either directly, or by holding an undisclosed controlling interest for all-but the two days surrounding the required quarterly reporting period; they can effectively shift funds from one asset to another to obscure any "real-world" valuation losses (or *gains*) that would normally affect the share price (not just among the comics, but rare baseball cards, cars, comics, etc.).

[bc]

1 minute ago, D84 said:

It's obviously a scam.

Some party certainly put a lot of time, $$$ and possible legal effort to bring it this far.

What I don't understand is why that same party didn't just buy some speculative/key books and keep 100% of the profits and slowly build their empire over time? The current documents they posted make it look like they are using these "interests" they are selling to capitalize possibly questionable asset purchases without the "shareholder" having any physical claim or ownership rights of said asset.

I searched their website but didn't find the "Approved by Bernie Madoff" sticker anywhere.

-bc

[valiantman]

Whatever.

I'm done.  The concept is valid - someday a system will exist where I have $X and I can buy a digital stake in a real world comic book key issue, sell that stake or buy more at any time, 24/7, and when that system exists, it will be a shift unlike anything this industry has ever seen.  The proof is in these ridiculous $1,000 variants printed in the past 10 years.  People WANT to invest in their favorite characters, but instead of putting millions into key issues, they're putting millions into nothing books.  They have NO option to put $1,000 in Detective #27.  When they have that option, expect Punchline to be the punchline.

Ebay was a bad idea.

CGC was a bad idea.

DIgital shares of comic books are a bad idea.

Got it.

[bc]

Just now, valiantman said:

Whatever.

I'm done.  The concept is valid - someday a system will exist where I have $X and I can buy a digital stake in a real world comic book key issue, sell that stake or buy more at any time, 24/7, and when that system exists, it will be a shift unlike anything this industry has ever seen.  The proof is in these ridiculous $1,000 variants printed in the past 10 years.  People WANT to invest in their favorite characters, but instead of putting millions into key issues, they're putting millions into nothing books.  They have NO option to put $1,000 in Detective #27.  When they have that option, expect Punchline to be the punchline.

Ebay was a bad idea.

CGC was a bad idea.

DIgital shares of comic books are a bad idea.

Got it.

I'm actually not doubting the concept at all.

Seriously concerned about this specific implementation of the concept - hells yeah.

-bc

[D84]

5 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Whatever.

I'm done.  The concept is valid - someday a system will exist where I have $X and I can buy a digital stake in a real world comic book key issue, sell that stake or buy more at any time, 24/7, and when that system exists, it will be a shift unlike anything this industry has ever seen.  The proof is in these ridiculous $1,000 variants printed in the past 10 years.  People WANT to invest in their favorite characters, but instead of putting millions into key issues, they're putting millions into nothing books.  They have NO option to put $1,000 in Detective #27.  When they have that option, expect Punchline to be the punchline.

Ebay was a bad idea.

CGC was a bad idea.

DIgital shares of comic books are a bad idea.

Got it.

I was an early adopter of both eBay and CGC because I saw value in those services.

What's the value in me pitching in on someone else's book, especially when you read their terms of service and it shows that they are trying everything in their power to give me nothing for my money.

[valiantman]

2 minutes ago, D84 said:

11 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Whatever.

I'm done.  The concept is valid - someday a system will exist where I have $X and I can buy a digital stake in a real world comic book key issue, sell that stake or buy more at any time, 24/7, and when that system exists, it will be a shift unlike anything this industry has ever seen.  The proof is in these ridiculous $1,000 variants printed in the past 10 years.  People WANT to invest in their favorite characters, but instead of putting millions into key issues, they're putting millions into nothing books.  They have NO option to put $1,000 in Detective #27.  When they have that option, expect Punchline to be the punchline.

Ebay was a bad idea.

CGC was a bad idea.

DIgital shares of comic books are a bad idea.

Got it.

I was an early adopter of both eBay and CGC because I saw value in those services.

What's the value in me pitching in on someone else's book, especially when you read their terms of service and it shows that they are trying everything in their power to give me nothing for my money.

Nowhere in what you just quoted did I say RallyRd.

[D84]

2 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Nowhere in what you just quoted did I say RallyRd.

Fair enough, but you have been pushing this so hard it seems like you already have skin in the game.

[valiantman]

Just now, D84 said:

Fair enough, but you have been pushing this so hard it seems like you already have skin in the game.

The game is that the concept is on its way.  RallyRd is starting the concept.  They don't have 24/7 digital trading.  If they did, we'd be a lot closer to the real thing.

 

When RallyRd says "YOU DO NOT OWN THE UNDERLYING ASSET" they mean that you are not entitled to 1/1000th of the book... as if you could rip a tiny piece off the cover to keep for yourself.

You own a share of an LLC, which owns the underlying asset.

It's not nothing.  It's a share of a company which owns a single asset, and they will not allow you to "take your piece of the asset" and go.  The asset is untouchable, the company owns it.

[batman_fan]

19 minutes ago, D84 said:

Fair enough, but you have been pushing this so hard it seems like you already have skin in the game.

Buying shares in your left nut are looking pretty attractive.