Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure 217
A couple's home was saved from foreclosure after they found a copy of Action Comics #1 in a box in the basement. From the article: "In a statement released through ComicConnect, the owner of the prized comic book said the family was still 'a little shell shocked' after the unexpected find. 'I was so nervous when I realized what it was worth,' the owner said. 'I know I am very fortunate but I will be greatly relieved when this book finds a new home.'"
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
"I don't think it's for usin'...I think it's just for lookin' through." -Cartman
Worth (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
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Finally! Thank you! I _never_ read TFA's, so here I sat, furiously reloading this page & quickly skimming it whilst screaming "what's it worth?! what's it fscking worth?! ARRRRRRRRG!" But everything is ok now
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Faster than a speeding (Score:4, Funny)
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Where did you get your information? (Score:2)
Watching Wall Street [imdb.com]? Hanging out with Bernie Madoff [wikipedia.org]?
Sure, there are people who abuse the stock market. There are also people who abuse drugs, so should we call aspirin therapy "tantamount to shooting heroin in an alley?"
The stock market allows corporations to raise capital by selling equity in the company. It lets small investors own a piece of a company (and share in any profits and losses of that company) without requiring enough cash to buy the whole company. Without these markets, companies wouldn't be
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The vast majority of stock trading does nothing whatsoever to raise capital for businesses. Most of it is a form of legal gambling.
Re:Where did you get your information? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not purely gambling. It's also a bit of pyramid scheme. As long as people keep putting more money into the stock market, stocks go up (to unreasonable heights), and when they get out because they need the money for something else, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. First one to get in and the first one to get out win. Others lose.
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It helps indirectly. Stock trading on the secondary market (ie, anything that isn't an IPO) gives the original investors liquidity and allows them to make new investments.
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Not directly, but without the secondary market, the primary market would be very small indeed.
Most Stock Trades Aren't IPOs (Score:2)
How does me selling my stocks to another third party raise capital for the corporation whose stock we are trading in? How often can a company dilute its current stock value by offering new stock, without suffering a shareholder revolt? If I believe in the products a company makes, and trust the management, why would I invest in it? All that 'good company, good management' bullshit is a sure sign that that company is not competitive with the big dogs, who do not suffer the expensive handicap of having trustw
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stocks are tantamount to gambling by people who are just far too greedy in the first place
WTF? Excuse me for wanting to have a decent retirement and not having to work until my dying day or depend on social security to keep food on the table. The stock market is integral to the retirement plans of almost everyone who is not putting all their hope into social security (or is independently wealthy). Whether your retirement is coming from a 401k, IRA. pension, etc, chances are you are highly invested in the stock market for retirement.
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stocks are tantamount to gambling by people who are just far too greedy in the first place
WTF? Excuse me for wanting to have a decent retirement and not having to work until my dying day or depend on social security to keep food on the table. The stock market is integral to the retirement plans of almost everyone who is not putting all their hope into social security (or is independently wealthy). Whether your retirement is coming from a 401k, IRA. pension, etc, chances are you are highly invested in the stock market for retirement.
But that's a proven risky retirement plan. It's a huge gamble to make with your quality of life during the years when you will have the greatest need to be comfortable.
Retirement money in the stock market is just crazy. You should invest in assets with more guaranteed returns.
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Real estate was and is a great investment, even at the top of the bubble. If you bought a house (outright, for investment, not financed), even at the peak of the market, you can rent it out right now, and have a nice and steady income stream. Demand for rentals is THROUGH THE ROOF right now due to the downturn.
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Demand for rentals is THROUGH THE ROOF right now due to the downturn
Not it's not - in most places anyways. There was just a thing on npr about this - lots of people are moving back with parents or renting a room in a house, as opposed to getting their own apartment. There is a rental glut due to inmvestors buying houses cheap and renting them out.
I have a rental and am not looking forward to finding new renters when my current renters leave in a few months.
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Yeah but detroit has been in decline for far longer than the housing bubble. If you thought detroit was a good investment market, you probably got what you deserved.
And OTOH, if you bought up a lot of cheap stuff in detroit, you may be in for a big win with ford/gm/chevrolet surging.
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I think what you're failing to see is that your "retirement investments" are a gamble. You may have invested $10,000 per year for 20 years (total investment: $200,000). If you had put your money in a safe and not touched it, you would have exactly that amount. By putting it in a retirement fund, it is being gambled with every day. You may have $1,000,000, or you may have $1.
I was recently reviewing someone's 401k. They were laid off about a year ago, and that 401k is all they have left
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It all depends on your view of retirement. It could be argued that at the age of 65, you will retire. You can plan for your 65th birthday to be your retirement date, and then take the funds out at that time. As you said, you should shift your funds to "less risky" options. That in itself says it's without risk.
These days, we don't get the luxury of deciding that we are retiring at 65. Sometimes we get a few months notice when they cut you loose for early retirement. These
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Just curious..where do you live?
Around here...the max unemployment wouldn't even cover my rent?!?!
Ok, it would..but there would only be about $100-$200 left over a month from it maybe, and that leftover wouldn't cover power, car payment, insurance...the necessities of life.
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The stock market is integral to the retirement plans of almost everyone...
Just goes to show, most people are gullible. How many of those people would have been better off investing in their mattress?
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Note that the home in question had been in the family for 50 years. How is it possibly it still had a mortgage after all that time? Apparently the family had taken a mortgage to start a new business that failed, effectively gambling away their home. (It was a second mortgage even. TFA doesn't say why they still had a first mortgage.)
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I'm assuming that after 50 years, kids or grandkids would have inherited the house.
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A roof over one's head is a necessity but stocks are tantamount to gambling by people who are just far too greedy in the first place...
Hey, if no one invested in Apple how would I ever get the opportunity to give them all my money for their shiny new stuff? Huh? Do you think that was just gonna happen with magic?
Superman saves a home... (Score:3, Insightful)
Superman saves family ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure"
rather than the more sensationalist:
"Superman Saves Family"
Re:Superman saves family ... (Score:5, Funny)
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For the Daily Planet, it's not newsworthy. For Slashdot, it's sensationalist.
they have owned the home since the 50's (Score:5, Interesting)
article says they have owned the home since the 1950's. means they probably refinanced a few years ago to "liberate the equity" or "put the equity to work". i bet they will lose the home some day.
Re:they have owned the home since the 50's (Score:5, Informative)
means they probably refinanced a few years ago to "liberate the equity" or "put the equity to work".
An article I read yesterday said that they took out a home equity loan to finance a small business startup -- which subsequently failed.
I don't know any of the details about the failed business, but even in the best of economic climates, the odds are against you.
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You need to replace the batteries in your sarcasm detector.
Re:they have owned the home since the 50's (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, because no one has any legitimate need to do that, like sending someone to college, or stating a business.
Twit.
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Starting a business, on the other hand, nobody has a "need" to do. And it is not for the faint of heart or wallet. If you can't afford to lose it, then you should not risk it.
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Sending someone to college or starting a business is perfectly fine, but it is really a good idea to gamble away your home for that?
If you've got a house in the family for 50 years, it should be completely paid by now. Why risk something like that by getting a mortgage you can't afford?
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Their parents probably bought the home for a few $K, leaving a windfall for their kids due to housing inflation and inheritance, which they lost - but fortunately they received another windfall from not having thrown away a 5 cent comic book that now happens to be worth a quarter million.
We talk about people "earning" money, but really, they system i
They still have a mortgage? (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of mortgage do these people have where they are still paying it off after ~60 years?
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Second mortgage? Fifth? Tenth?
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You can take out a mortgage on your home... for some quick cash.
Doesn't make sense to me though since it's still a loan you need to pay back. You don't even get anything from the loan like a new car or house.
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If you are going to borrow to buy a car, using home equity may be the best way to do it. In the US, mortgage interest is often tax deductible.
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Afaict provided they aren't for too high a percentage of the houses value mortgages are generally regarded by the banks as low risk so even in places where they don't have tax relief for mortgage interest they are still generally the cheapest way for an individiaul to borrow.
Re:They still have a mortgage? (Score:5, Informative)
Read the first page of TFA. "The couple had recently taken out a second mortgage on their home to start a new business, which failed in the uncertain economy."
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They should have watched this video [bigthink.com] first.
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What kind of mortgage do these people have where they are still paying it off after ~60 years?
I replied below, but it's worth restating: they reportedly used a home equity loan to finance a small business startup, which subsequently failed.
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FTFA, on the same page as your quote no less: "The couple had recently taken out a second mortgage on their home to start a new business, which failed in the uncertain economy."
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The home has been in the family since the 50's. It doesn't mean that the current owners have owned it since the 50's.
My wife and I bought her family home from her parents three years ago. It's been in the family since the 80's. We still have a mortgage that will take decades to pay off, as we started from scratch.
Proof of the Law of Large Numbers (Score:2)
As the number of people foreclosed on increases, the probability of find just about anything increases as well. If there's an Action Comics #1 out there, that makes me suspect (1) we've foreclosed on a hell of alot of people, and (2) I can only imagine what other improbable forgotten items are being found. We could very easily be approaching Hoffa odds.
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I hear Godwin is looking for Nazis in some of them.
speaking of hoffa's corpse (Score:2)
I'm sure they're glad (Score:2)
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hahaha! Awesome.
Heat vision (Score:2)
Mom's basement (Score:2)
Wait, so there might be something profitable down here with me in Mom's basement? *rummage*
This is a commentary... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Nothing intrinsically holds any value. That something carries any value is purely in the eye of the beholder.
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That's just the way I look at it, anyway.
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Yes, there is real value in things that directly affect your survival: food, clothing, shelter, health care. Pretty much everything else is operating on a more imaginary level.
Re:This is a commentary... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Seems pretty clearly to be operating on the imaginary level. Yes, you can often trade things with imagined value for things with real value. But imagine it like a game of musical chairs. When the music stops (no further trades are possible), would you rather have a house, or a superman comic?
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Are you saying things have "real value" only if that value still exists when you can no longer trade that thing for some other thing? In that case the idea of "value" is almost meaningless, since you have now replaced it with "utility". If I have no need or use for something it has no value.
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WTF? Is there another measure of "value" besides "what someone is willing to pay for it"?
Yes, there are quite a few [wikipedia.org], in fact.
Superman lives in a basement? (Score:4, Funny)
I thought only nerds did that . . . ?
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let me see.... (Score:4, Funny)
I have a copy of the "Death of Superman" comic from 1992 around here somewhere. I'm gonna buy a house with it!
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Most people I tell this to don't believe it.... (Score:4, Funny)
When I was a lot younger... I think I was around 7, I had come to acquire an absolutely huge pile of old comic books that a friend of my dad's gave to me. One of these comics turned out to be an Action #1 comic. It was dog-eared, definitely a very used comic book, but still intact and very readable. The only character in the comic that I recognized was Superman... the others were completely unknown to me (I can't even remember who they were). Owing to the fact that the superman story in it ended in a cliffhanger (superman apparently couldn't yet fly in the story, and was falling from a great height while carrying some guy), and the fact that I didn't know any of the other characters in the comic, I had thought relatively little of this comic, other than to notice that it was #1 issue, which with my limited knowledge of comics at the time I knew could be worth a bit more than the cover price (10c, if I remember correctly).
Being the young entrepreneur that I was, I held a miniature yard sale at the back of my parents' place, unloading the comics that I did not want. As I said, I saw that this comic was a #1, so I priced it higher than the cover price - at 50 cents, five times the cover price.
It sold, along with quite a few of the other comics that I had, and I never thought of it again until I was in my teens, when I saw a reprint of a portion of the comic (just the superman story) and an article that explained how rare the original actually was. Seeing this triggered my memory of the comic that I had let go for only half a dollar in the early 1970's, and I've had to live with knowing what an imbecile I was ever since. I can easily say I didn't know better at the time, but in actuality, I always think that I _should_ have. I wasn't a stupid kid... well, maybe I was, but I was bright enough to know that I probably should have talked to an adult before selling those comics.
Anyways... that's my anecdote about this comic... and one of those "if I had only known then what I know now" type of regrets.
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You shouldn't feel too bad. Your friend's Dad was an adult and still didn't know any better. And from a child's point of view it would make sense to assume that an adult wouldn't give up something of significant value.
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I don't blame you for failing to imagine the ridiculous prices collectors pay for it nowadays.
I recently found an original Transformer toy from the '80s. I thought it might sell for as much as EUR 50, which is quite a bit more than it cost at the time. Turns out people were fighting each other to be allowed to pay me EUR 300 for it. Not a house, but certainly a nice weekend out in exchange for some childhood nostalgia. But I bet I'll regret it in a couple of decades.
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There's a silver lining in all this: that $.50 in 1970 is worth $2.73 [westegg.com] now!
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Talking to an adult probably wouldn't have helped. Wasn't this about the same time a lot of moms were throwing out boxes full of baseball cards?
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On the topic of stupid kid things, I inherited a bunch of indian head pennies from my father. I was probably no more than 12. You'd see ads on tv all the time advertising these shiny coin collections for easy payments of $19.95. My indian heads didn't look shiny at all, so I cleaned them all so that they were. Thought this was a good thing.
Now that I'm older, and wiser about coin collecting, I really hate how stupid I was to do that. It's a collection I wasn't going to sell anyways (pass it on, keep it
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As I understand it when you clean the coins it removes most of the collector value. If you do clean them, there is a certain way to do it. I just used the eraser on a number 2 pencil and rubbed until it was shiny. Who knows, maybe I'm still mistaken and I didn't do all that bad a thing.
http://coins.about.com/od/caringforcoins/ht/cleancoins.htm [about.com]
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Would you hear such a story in 2040? (Score:2)
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I mean, someone finding the original download of some book in a forgotten corner of the hard disk of some e-book reader and selling it for hundreds of thousands of dollars?
No, but the superman #1 comic will be worth ten times as much.
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Personally I'd rather see pristine copies available online for anyone who's interested than someone dropping a quarter mill on a bunch of pages stapled together because they're old and scarce.
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1 April, 2040:
Three-digit Slashdot ID sells at auction for $240,000!
Cape Rear (Score:2)
Well then. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except the alternatives to capitalism have been horribly oppressive, dehumanizing, and found not to really work at all.
I can handle that rich guys buy rare comics. No biggie. I also get to eat, sleep in my own bed, and buy trite shit myself.
Please go start your super society on some island somewhere. I'll give you 6 months before it becomes a new Jonestown or at best a new Cuba.
This is the Truman show (Score:2)
To me, The Truman show WAS a black comedy. Look at how everyone is trying to get their 2 minutes of fame on the latest vapid reality show. The video of thousands of models creating a stampede (in NYC I think?) trying to get on a model reality show and all thinking this was their only chance at decent job and stardom?
We ARE on The Truman Show, and we are all being filmed, if we let the asses do it. The only reason why The Truman show came out so nice is because Truman picked the best out come... and yet t
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So how do you make your money? (Score:2)
Spewns -
Unless you live in a schoolbus on a hippie commune I'm guessing you do something to earn cash.
Please suggest a way that this family could grow their money in a way that does not offend your delicate sensibilities. Whether it's buying gold, the stock market, real estate, baseball cards... the one thing every form of investment has in common is one party feels the item in question is more valuable than the money in their pocket, and thus goods are sold and money changes hands.
I'm happy for the family
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And just where exactly might this magical land be, because it sure as fuck isn't the United States.
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I have a family and a mortgage, am self-educated with a high-school diploma and a recovering alcoholic with 11 years sobriety. Although its been super tough, my business is still here, about to celebrate 2 years, and is growing.
Those who can't/don't make it are victims of life being life in a dog-eat-dog world. The fact that I am making it ag
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That "extremely bored rich guy" is not flushing money down the drain. He's investing it. In a decade or two, that comic's value might double for all we know
The only reason why the price might double eventually (and it just might, unfortunately) is because another extremely bored rich guy will be willing to pay that much for it by then.
It's a pyramid scheme, a self-sustained delusion. Well, actually, same applies to most of modern "art" - people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that's absolute crap as far as art go, because everyone else "in the know" agrees that it's how much the thing worth. It's subjective theory of value taken to extremes
Confusing Title (Score:2)
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They may not be mortgage free; but everything helps. Well done.
OTOH, if not for the mortgage crisis they'd have been able to cash it in for $250K in fun money.
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We could use a bit of that 'fun money' to buy a tractor and start better using our pasture. And fix the roof on the garage.
You sure know how to have a good time...
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Disagree. Whats in more of a bubble, comic book prices or house prices? Both appeal to the same economic block, that being the boomers. Now that the boomers have been fleeced out of all their money, both prices should collapse, or are collapsing.
Now a couple decades from now, maybe a 1st gen ipod would have some appeal (a zune?)