Great video Bry! Option D, wife found out you purchased the comic book for $2M and you had to liquidate it in the divorce for $800k.

People with that kind of money are always looking for losses to offset their tax liability. More than likely they wrote off the difference in price that they paid for the book vs what they sold it for as a loss and were able to shield other profits from other assets. My boss explained this to me once. I'm pretty sure it was something like this.

Option D: the buyer was from overseas and trying to "invest" in comics. Bought and realized the market was dropping and got out with as minimal loss as possible

Sounds fishy, unless they are ultra wealthy nobody would be willing to lose that much money

Personally I think he overpaid and tried to flip it for an additional 10% on what he paid for.

ONE OTHER THEORY: Buy the $2 Million book; Crack the case; Put in a DIFFERENT book; Reseal case; Who would know? Sell the replaced book (which you bought for significantly less). Profit.

I think it's bad investing by extremely wealthy people, who don't actually know the comic book market. Everyone hears about how these huge grail books are worth tons of money, potentially Millions! And they want to get in on that easy money. So some rich person jumped at the opportunity, probably overpaid to begin with, and then lost out when reselling. First Iron Man, yeah it's a big book, but it's not Action #1. But when no one is selling Action #1 they think, "Hey Iron Man is a big name too. That's gonna be worth millions."

I'm 100% sure that these events are created by Comic Book KZreadrs using their platforms and millions of dollars to create content. Bry, Tom, Mickey, WE see what you all are doing here!

Now that you are in Montana you will have to try fly fishing. It's not about keeping the actual fish which has little inherent value -- it's about the process, the experience. I go camping and fishing to relax and enjoy beautiful scenery. Sit and stare into the campfire and enjoy a glass of good bourbon. A getaway from cell phones, computers, KZread, the problems of society, etc.. Conversely, buying a $2 million comic book is solely about the book, not the process. Sorry, but the analogy is flawed. On another note, a number of years ago there were claims of shill bidding on original comic book art on Heritage in order to significantly drive up the market prices.

Just watch Breaking Bad for money laundering….😂

As Ian Fleming wrote in Goldfinger, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

anybody whose been married or is married can u tell exactly wat happened. if it can happen to us in the one and tens thousand range - it can happen to ppl in the 100s thousands range.

The whole TAX WRITE OFF idea doesnt work in this case because even if you sold it to yourself while making it look like a sale to someone else, the amount you are invested into the book after tax savings is still far more than the book is worth. For the tax write off to work you have to buy at fmv and then sell it (to yourself) for a very cheap price, of course making it look like you sold it to someone else while still remaining in possession of the book.

I sell stuff (& comics) on eBay. I assume it’s money laundering. I have always thought online selling would be an easy way to launder money - sell something, move the money, never move the slab.

Collusion, look at Heritage and the connection between WATA and graded video games. Remember the record sale of Mario 64? Total scam.

Things that make you go hmmm... I have wondered the same thing about these high dollar sales.

There is another saying: Never attribute something to conspiracy that can be attributed to incompetence. Option A seems more likely.

Yeah, I'm not sure what option I would choose. I always feel like there's probably some unknown factor we haven't thought of.

I'm sure this happens a lot more than we think is older collectors buy the book pass away then the inheritors sell it meaning for them. the inheritors it's not really a loss in money

Collusion between a rich person and a friend or relative. They rich person gives the 2 million to the relative to buy the comic from them. The relative then gives the 2 mil back. The rich person can then have their accomplice sell it for real expecting its value to be pumped by the most recent sale.