Is This A SCAM? Market Manipulation? Money Laundering? 

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.

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. all i can say is poor guy... I feel for u u brotha u r not alone

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Great investigative reporting Bry! 😉 Very interesting thread.

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

Loving the videos, just getting back into collecting!

Great vid as usual. Keep it up my friend.

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.

Thats been happening for years but nobody spoke about it or cared until recently, collectors are more educated now than 5 or 10 years ago, good video on info

Ryan from Automatic Comics mentioned that just before this Heritage Auction, the Comic Link posting mentioning the private sale for $2,000,000 sale suddenly appeared. He speculated that the seller wanted to make it known how much he paid for the book. Predictably, he got nowhere near what he paid for it. It's obvious that he was able to take the loss a lot better than most collectors. It doesn't seem to be money laundering.

they were probably thinking that they might make a profit and put their books up on auction only to lose money

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."

Awesome vid very curious!

To sell books like that in this market is crazy

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.

Liquidty needs could be it. If the books are being bought buy investors and a portion of the investors are trying to redeem their shares. It would not be uncommon in a small REIT for them to have to sell a property at a loss to free capital to redeem investor shares. Its seems like there were some consortiums buying multiple high end books during the boom as "investments" and fractionalizing them.

Option 1. Option 3 is a strong no-go as it would be a huge risk for the auction house (brand/reputation). Option 2 seems too far-fetched. I am not sure any criminal wants to launder its money and receive less than 50% of the original dirty money. Too much risk and price volatility in the collectible marketplace.

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

More likely C. Unless there's full disclosure about the people, entities, corporations or whoever is involved in the money transactions of these books you'll never know. Heritage does their closed-cell thing. CGC does their closed-cell thing. Comic Link does their closed-cell thing. And all of these closed-cell entities are transacting business amongst themselves and with each other and it all smells very fishy. If these events weren't so regularly-occurring maybe you could make the argument that there's just some weird, honest stuff going on but the fact that these "outlier events" seem to be occurring with greater frequency than previously reported in this economy just really smells bad. This is one reason why--and I think I've said it here before--we need some sort of oversight. I don't know if this stuff is occurring to affect the market-at-large, but I do think some select entities have figured out a way to make a sluggish commodity still privately very profitable.

As a simple collector who loves to hunt in the wild. If I were to get lucky and find a major grail I would never sell at auction. To answer the question though It’s probably just some investor panicking about the market and is trying to regain some of his money before he loses more from dropping values . Now is a great time to buy because of this.

Option E - Divorce or a dire need of money.

Whoever sold it is just using it as a loss tax right-off. Above our pay grade. The laundering happens in the claiming of the loss. It's legal laundering.

Yeah, thinking it’s A. I’ve bought a ton of books and after a bit I sour on it, like maybe they saw that the 9.8 was really more like a 9.6 and they were like ugh, now I don’t love it as much as a thought

Interesting thoughts

Thanks as always bry

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.

Option A: I think it's a purchase on spec. The buyer thought he could turn a profit but the market changed and the buyer took a bath. Likely not a collector just a spec buyer. Perhaps the loss matters less if it allows a way to offset other monies during tax season.

B for the private sale, A for the Cap sale

I'd go with option A or the other post below with an option D. I don't see how money laundering makes sense. (That being said, my knowledge of money laundering is from watching TV shows like Ozark.) Very thought-provoking topic! Another thing I'd try to avoid, two examples of a book being sold twice isn't exact "the same books being sold over and over and over again." Pretty small sample size. I bet there are hundreds of less high-profile, high dollar examples of big books that were purchased in 2021 that were resold 2.5 years later at a 50% loss. Still, it's incredibly curious! Thanks Bry -- I know it takes a lot of time creating this content!

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

Very interesting discussion Bry. I select options B AND C. Looking forward to the Netflix documentary in 5-10 years. Keep grinding bro!✌️

Collusion makes the most sense. Guys with the money to buy these books dont like wasting money. I don't see them selling these books in a down market on a whim. Like others have said, possible divorce and separation of property and assets.

I think the reason is both option 2 and 3. My theory is the buyer at $2mil might also falsify income declarations on paper. The $2mil was a private brokered deal between two original parties; whether this deal really went through or not we don't know. Is the original buyer using the loss to offset profits or gains for tax purposes. All you have to do is create a sale on paper and use the loss as an right off against your gains and hope the IRS will not investigate. Its kinda like declaring losses on stocks from previous years to offset your gains on current reporting year of income. Creative accounting can get pretty colorful in the business world.

Option C

Imma go with option C.

People that can afford such things buy them then get bored and sell them. Money isn’t that much of an issue to them.

Leaning towards option A here. Somebody with more money than sense wanted the book, then later got tired of it. Or wanted to cut their loss in a down market

I bought a comic for 1800 a few months ago and just sold it for 1500 because i wanted the money quickly for something else. Im sure this also happens with people in the higher price range. Of course the TOS39 is an extreme case where the buyer was clueless about it not being worth 2mil.

Is it possible that the person who paid $2 million thought it was a cheap price and wrongly thought he would make money and flipped it thinking it was 2021 and the book would sell for $4 million

I am leaning on Option A. Grab and go for the rush of owning that slab. Bragging rights. Specially if that individual has disposable income.

My gut feels like C where they’re trying to talk up the price for the latest sale. Fishy all the way around.

Looks like the book's been trimmed down the right-side too. There was a scam a few years ago with CGC grading unknown quantities of trimmed books without noticing it had been done.

For Captain America, most likely A; for Tales of Suspense, either B or C, depending on lawfulness of the auction house's actions. Because C is probably unlawful (?) for the auction house, it may not be this one. If B is lawful for the auction house to accept $2mm cash (maybe unlawful?) then I would definitely say B.

Coincidence, I don’t think so. Thank you for the theories.

Rich people often have big assets but low cash flow. You sell because of a cash crunch and take a loss of $100k because it's no big

Thats a lot of money, and anytime money like that is involved anything is possible so I say all 3 are good candidates.

Other scenario? - Heritage wants big keys - and they cut a deal with the seller to get it in the auction. Heck, I wouldn't put it past them to PLANT BUYERS. - Just have them there to bid up books. If one of their plant gets it? - who cares? - just put it in the next auction.

Maybe someone went massively over budget and their only option was to sell it and they got hosed

I think it's C. Someone has a buddy at comic link and some creative marketing makes money for everybody in this scenario

I honestly think option A. People with that kind of money may just buy things like this for a lot of money because they can without worry of how much losses they may take if they sell

Someone who can drop that kinda money on a comic is going to have a high net worth and probably didn't lose too much sleep over it. They most likely needed to liquidate to cover other expenses or maybe wanted to buy something else.

Option C auction houses are bidding on their own books in order to manipulate a book

It definitely sounds fishy. I want to say option C, but its probably option A. Thanks for sharing, Bry.

I'm thinking option C . I think it's the houses are being shady trying to inflate their profits rather than the seller

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

How about this scenario Potentially it was brought on some kind of line of credit or buisness account before liquidation and sold later aquire real cash money 💸 ...

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

Honestly I believe its influencers new collectors buy in to hype then regret it and take a loss. Its happening so much on eBay now an auction goes to high and the buyer just backs out and doesn’t pay. I’ve got that problem right now with a 9.9 twice it’s sold yet the buyers didn’t pay. I honestly think cgc isn’t coveted as they once were either.

Scammers are always going to scam, interesting.. keep us updated

Yeah, B... Sketchy. The ToS feels like money laundering. The Cap1 feels like buyer's remorse and/or divorce.

Option D: its space lizards man, its always space lizards

I don't know, but I do know that's an expensive book, either way.

I hope it's just option A, and we see it happen in the next "Thomas Crown Affair" type movie!

nice theories

I think the comic link situation is probably more simple. They announced the sale and the sale never actually went through. The capital America sale just looks like someone got cold feet and sold it for a loss.

Sup Bry! Is it ok to submit option D? Option D is that the purchases are being treated like some fine art are treated at auction. These Items are still being held and vaulted by auction house between purchases. So if buyers aren't taking immediate possession of the book and paying for a vaulting service because of the value of the Item, it could be a matter of selling the item once they can't afford the service. Just thinking that most people couldn't insure the Item of this value if they brought it home. With Vaulting, Item would be secured and insured. But it would cost a premium. Just a theory.

I saw a video where somebody who worked for Heritage Auction house said that the owner or somebody higher up has auctioned the same comic multiple times and buys it back for a higher price . So I guess I’m going with the conclusion. I really think a lot of the higher price graded books were being manipulated.

Option (C)

What about option D Maybe purchased by investment company, and because of the softness of the market with grail prices dropping, decided it was going to take to long to sit on to show a profit and cut there losses. Maybe wanting to take a loss , to even out gains on the year or quarter to limit luxury taxes . Or don't know the hobby and made an over priced purchase, based on 2020,2021 hot market came to the conclusion items are only worth what someone else is willing to pay. No matter what a computer model says or a company tells you what FMV is for a particular collectible

That loss gives me a headache. Wow. If you want a pic with the thing, go to a convention, ask to see it and have someone take a pic of you with it.

Nick Cage!! LOL

Bry very interesting video. Like the TV show Ozark, I go with option B.

It may have been an option A where they though that they may get more money for it.

Sounds like a flip gone bad. Like, I just won the lottery and I’m going to do stupid things bad

The Comic Link sale probably fell through, so the seller put it up on Heritage for auction.

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

It's definitely option A, Bry.

I'd think the IRS would be all over this to verify legitimacy. They're not going to miss their piece(s) of the pie and if they smell something fishy, well....follow the money.

The greater conspiracy is if that was my New Mutants 87 it would've gotten a 9.4.

9.8 on a book that is 60 years old is hard to believe

I would bury this theory. Art and real estate is the easiest way to clean money.

I personally think Extraterrestrials are involved. Of course the Government will deny this. Something to do with bringing original vintage comics back to the Mother Planet but right before the return they found out paper and plastic would not hold up to the rigors of space travel so they sold them and bought containers of Captain Crunch and Uranium instead. Well …. It’s just a theory. Have I been reading too many 1950’s comics?

Two slabs this month?! Bry you're a savage. I don't collect slabs (yet) but if stuff like this (CGC scams etc) keeps happening around them it'll tank the market and shift people to raw books instead. At least I think it will. Greed is a mofo.

he figured that Heritage would garner a higher price than Comic Link. But by the time the Heritage auction took place, the 2nd place ComicLink bidder spent that nut on something else and the 3rd place ComicLink bidder only went up to $840k. 3rd place ComicLink guy wins in the end.

Who knows for sure but let us know when u find out

C with some B sprinkled in there sometimes.

Definitely something fishy. I'd go with option C

Option E - yup, i got nothing. lol.

Wow that is a lot of weirdness going on there.

Catch and release. Expensive pic to take 😂

D = the 1st buyer never paid the 2M, so the seller listed it again but with Heritage.

I'd give that book a 9.4 all day.

I don't think it's money laudarying. But rather it could be money smugglering. Trying to get large amounts of money out of one country into another country.

Very quick and efficient way to launder for the right kinda folks that deal that way, but only, if the auction house is in on it or at least turning a blind eye. The auction house uses the publicity, and the dirty money gets cleaned, win, win until someone goes to jail. Lol. Maybe just better not to poke the stick in this fire. 🔥 😬

All scenarios you outline are plausible explanations; however, I believe Option C is most likely the catalyst for these severe price fluctuations. Market manipulation and collusive practices to maximize profits are commonplace (oil, precious metals, stocks, …); we have become desensitized to such routine everyday practices. The hobby enjoys no immunity.