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Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

bbc.com

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Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#181

Post by RHSeeger »

aeonik wrote: post #164
zetanor wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to know what sequence of characters you normally use in place of an em-dash to express the same nuance of relationship and timing.

Not the GP, but I often just use commas and parenthetical asides (like this). It's a different stylistic choice (em dashes are nice and all), but it's not how I think, and my writing reflects how I think. I also will often use the fabled semicolon. It's easy to use with contrasting statements, but that's not its only use; I can use them in some situations to elaborate where em dashes are used. I'm not saying they are…

> I also will often use the fabled semicolon

I regularly use the semicolon, especially in a sentence where this are commas use in another way. In my mind, a semicolon is a "greater" separator than a comma; used to separate parts of thought in the same sentence (vs grouping of items or a pause).

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#182

Post by mr_toad »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #101
WalterBright wrote: post #56

I remember a painting was discovered, and there was speculation that it was a da Vinci. It was appraised at $30,000. If it could be proven to be a da Vinci, it would be worth a million. For the same item. Crazy.

Imagine some rich asshat at a pretentious cocktail party going "I have a da Vinci at home." Vs (pointing at a picture on the phone) "I have this painting at home" Which one impresses the other rich asshats more? Maybe even millions of dollars worth more.

Perhaps not the best example, da Vinci was prolific, and you can easily pick up something of his for under $3k.

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#183

Post by loloquwowndueo »

twoodfin wrote: post #122
saretup wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different tax loopholes depending on region etc, but basically like this: I’m a billionaire earning $100M this year. I owe $40M as taxes for that. (Too much!) I find a dumb banana painting by a starving artist. I buy it from him for $1000. I wait 6 months. I go to a museum to get it appraised by “professionals”. I pay the professional appraiser’s wife $50K as a gift. The appraiser says the painting is now worth $30M!…

Yes, there are lots of “loopholes” available if you are willing to commit tax fraud! But that’s something anyone can do, it’s not particularly harder to lie about the value of charitable donations if you’re not ultra-wealthy.

Loopholes are by definition legal.

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#184

Post by dahart »

georgefrowny wrote: post #180
dahart wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it crazy? Clearly the value is the proof itself, not the item, right? Certainly a genuine da Vinci is an investment you can very likely recoup and make a profit on. If I could buy one that’s proven, for a million, and I had a million sitting around, I would. That would be a smart move. The $30k non da Vinci, who knows, could be everything from love of art and total loss to perhaps a small profit. It depends on how…

> Certainly a genuine da Vinci is an investment you can very likely recoup and make a profit on. I.e. it's worth money because it's worth money.

Hehe, I like it. Yeah that’s a valid, if funny and tautological way to summarize it. I am arguing that the monetary value comes from the story attached something that’s unique, historical, famous, etc. The artifact itself didn’t change value when it was proven to be a da Vinci, a new and very valuable story was attached to it. Without the story/proof it really is worth less.

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#185

Post by sema4hacker »

Growing up, I had a closet full of terrific toys in great condition, many of them unusual and fairly rare. When I got back from my first year of college, I found that my Mom, unlike the mother in the article, had given them all away. I was so disappointed.

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#186

Post by evanelias »

muzani wrote: post #163
Zenbit_UX wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is why is issue #1 of a very old and popular thing valuable?

I get that it's more valuable than Superman #200, but why 9 million dollars valuable. There's a poorer quality one at 5 million, but that also means that there's other copies in existence. It's also not the first Superman comic, what about Action Comics #1? Why is the Call of Cthulhu (Weird Tales, Feb 1928) about $50k? Or in terms of characters, what makes Superman worth 3x more than MARVEL #1 or Batman?

It's a combination of importance and condition.

Superman was arguably the first super-hero, and certainly the first successful/popular one. And Superman #1 is the first time a super-hero got their own dedicated comic book. It has long been generally considered the third-most desirable comic book issue in existence, after Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman) and Detective Comics #27 (first appearance of Batman).

This copy of Superman #1 was graded as a 9.0, which basically means it's like-new, despite being 86 years old. And it's naturally in that condition without ever undergoing restoration, which affects the value. Of all known unrestored copies of Superman #1, this copy is in the best condition.

That said, there are at least three known comic book copies that would be valued more highly: two known unrestored 9.0 copies of Action Comics #1, and one known unrestored 9.2 copy of Detective Comics #27. If any of those were to be sold at auction today, their value would almost certainly be a lot higher than $9 million, in part due to this Superman #1 auction setting a recent precedent.

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#187

Post by georgefrowny »

dahart wrote: post #184
georgefrowny wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly a genuine da Vinci is an investment you can very likely recoup and make a profit on. I.e. it's worth money because it's worth money.

Hehe, I like it. Yeah that’s a valid, if funny and tautological way to summarize it. I am arguing that the monetary value comes from the story attached something that’s unique, historical, famous, etc. The artifact itself didn’t change value when it was proven to be a da Vinci, a new and very valuable story was attached to it. Without the story/proof it really is worth less.

Yes but there has to be some kind of self-reinforcing circularity to the value of that story, or the price of a da Vinci would be roughly inflationary or even under it and therefore not a good investment. Da Vinci's story isn't substantially changing (and doesn't even have a bunch of aging, rich, nostalgic people at exactly the right age-wealth point relative to the material in question to drive prices like Superman) and there are only more famous people over time, so the percentage of all famous pointings taken by da Vinci will decrease. There are no new practical uses for paintings being discovered. While the older the work gets the more it is worth, it's 500 years old already, so even an extra 50 years is only a small increase in its relative historicity (0.2% per year, so well under the region of inflation)

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#188

Post by mvkel »

mr_toad wrote: post #178
mvkel wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people only fixate on your emdashes, they're just lazy. The bigger AI smell to me is the "it's not X — it's Y," of which the emdash is a part.

They’re using a crude linear model to identify AI output, which is not that much different from that which the AI safety industry is peddling, or the people that sell solutions to identify AI output. You can’t reliably predict the output of a non-linear model with a simple linear model, no matter how hard you wish it.

Perfectly said. The safety industry is such a grift, propped up by ignorant VCs who don't want to miss their rocket ship

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#189

Post by meindnoch »

bouncycastle wrote: post #32
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry .. I didn’t realize that zipcomic.com was illegal .. I’d assumed the copyright had expired[0], and checking on DC Universe Infinite isn’t possible, since it’s geolocked and I’m not in a country deemed worthy of it. It’s probably available in Libby or Hoopla, legally. [0] It’s still copyrighted, although it seems that will expire in a decade or so, though. I guess I’ll read it then.

back in my day, we had these buildings called 'libraries' which were filled wall-to-wall with many different types of copyright material. Mainly books, but also comics, newspapers and magazines, that you could legally read and also borrow and take home for a few days, for FREE!!

Stop! This is disgusting!

Re: Original Superman comic becomes the highest-priced comic book ever sold

#190

Post by smt88 »

WalterBright wrote: post #56

I remember a painting was discovered, and there was speculation that it was a da Vinci. It was appraised at $30,000. If it could be proven to be a da Vinci, it would be worth a million. For the same item. Crazy.

This isn't a great example because da Vinci was a famous historical figure and lived 500 years ago. Just the history of a real da Vinci is remarkable, regardless of the artistic merit.

A more interesting example would be a convincing fake purported to be painted by a highly regarded artist who's still living and working today, and this does happen, too.

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