Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure

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.'"

Comments

Obligatory

[Pojut]

"I don't think it's for usin'...I think it's just for lookin' through." -Cartman

Worth

[gatzby3jr]

From the article:

It could fetch upwards of $250,000

Re:Worth

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Faster than a speeding

[Jarkov]

Now where was Superman when all my stocks nosedived?

Re:Faster than a speeding

[alphax45]

Wouldn't it be better to BUY when they are low?

Re:Faster than a speeding

[JWSmythe]

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. They have about $40,000 invested into it. Not too long ago, it was worth $115,000. Today, it's worth about $30,000, and still dropping daily. When they cash out, they'll come out with something in the ballpark of $25,000.

    They will be cashing out soon, haven't found a job and it doesn't look hopeful to happen before their other savings have been completely depleted,

    I'm sure plenty of people will argue with me, but taking a $40,000 investment and only getting $25,000 is not a a good plan. For those who do, I'll be more than happy to start up a retirement fund for you. I'll take your money, and give you 65% of it back when you need it most. Sounds stupid when it's put into those terms, doesn't it? That's because it was, no matter how it was decorated for you when you bought into it.

Re:Faster than a speeding

[JWSmythe]

    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 days, you are lucky to have two weeks notice, and it's rarely at retirement age. You'll find your department is closing, your job is being outsourced, or any of hundreds of kind ways they can say "you no longer have work." About half the people I've known to be cut loose in the last couple years have only had the luxury of being called in to talk to the boss, followed by a less than friendly escort to the door, and a company wide email saying "To all staff, Kronos does not work here any more. He is not allowed access to any company resources, and staff are not permitted to have contact with him." Regardless of how insensitive that sounds, I've read that email more times than I care to.

    So, when are you going to retire? I guarantee it won't be on your schedule. If your schedule and the stock market don't coincide, then you are SOL. If you retired in the last couple years, did you really have a choice of when to dip into the retirement fund? I guess if you were making mad money, and had a bunch of money in the bank, then you're ok. For the rest of the world, you take what's in the retirement funds and cry about it until it's gone.

Re:Faster than a speeding

[cayenne8]

"We did alright through that because our mortgage payment was less than my unemployment checks so we only had to use our fund for bills and living expenses."

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.

Superman saves a home...

[Drakkenmensch]

... FOR REAL!

Superman saves family ...

[perpenso]

I'm surprised the article has the more accurate title:

"Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure"

rather than the more sensationalist:

"Superman Saves Family"

;-)

Re:Superman saves family ...

[oodaloop]

How is "Superman Saves Family" sensationalist? He does that so much it's not even newsworthy, like the shuttle launch or another year that' s not the year of the Linux desktop.

they have owned the home since the 50's

[alen]

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

[ptbarnett]

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.

Re:they have owned the home since the 50's

[geekoid]

yes, because no one has any legitimate need to do that, like sending someone to college, or stating a business.

Twit.

Re:they have owned the home since the 50's

[netsavior]

sending someone to college?? Student loans are one of the cheapest forms of debt, although if you plan on bankruptcy or default, then it is best to avoid student loans because they are protected from bankruptcy, but that is a pretty unethical, but mostly legal way to go about stealing money if your plan is to default.

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.

Re:they have owned the home since the 50's

[h4rr4r]

You need to replace the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

Re:they have owned the home since the 50's

[BitZtream]

Actually, over extending yourself and losing your home pretty much shows that you are the twit.

They lived beyond what they could support and it came back to bite them. Sucks. It happens. It still their fault, not the economy. Having owned a home for 60 years they could have paid it off twice by now under any normal circumstances OTHER than willingly risking their home with something that didn't pay off.

No, there is no legitimate need to do that, none. College is free in America if you bother to find the grants (not even getting loans!), starting a business with collateral and a SB loan was trivial up until about a year and a half ago ...

So having paid for college myself, and having started my own business before I turned 21 with the help of the Small Business Association, a bank, and the title to my car forgive me if I don't feel sympathy for some people that risked more than they should have and almost lost it. At most they should have lost some far less valuable bits of collateral. You aren't going to have a business with no home, but you can have a home without a business. You do not put one up as the collateral for the other.

I'm glad they found a way out of losing their home though, I don't wish that on anyone, but I don't feel sorry for those who bring it on themselves.

They still have a mortgage?

[1000101]

FTFA: "painful task of packing up a home that had been in the family since at least the 1950s"

What kind of mortgage do these people have where they are still paying it off after ~60 years?

Re:They still have a mortgage?

[makomk]

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."

This is a commentary...

[bi$hop]

...on wealth and the disparity between classes in our society. I'm glad this family will be "saved" from foreclosure, but it never ceases to amaze me that someone could drop a quarter of a million dollars on something that doesn't carry much *real* value--like a comic book.

Re:This is a commentary...

[onkelonkel]

I see. So this comic book clearly has "real value" since the family was able to trade it for shelter.

Re:This is a commentary...

[Aboroth]

I think of intrinsic value as equivalent to how much human effort would go into making it, with of course the condition that people actually want it for something. For a comic book that is easily reproducible since it is only made of paper, that has a very low intrinsic value. For a big gold bar, that takes a lot of human effort to mine the ore and refine it, so that has a lot higher intrinsic value.
That's just the way I look at it, anyway.

Re:This is a commentary...

[shutdown -p now]

WTF? Is there another measure of "value" besides "what someone is willing to pay for it"?

Yes, there are quite a few, in fact.

Superman lives in a basement?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I thought only nerds did that . . . ?

let me see....

[tverbeek]

I have a copy of the "Death of Superman" comic from 1992 around here somewhere. I'm gonna buy a house with it!

Re:let me see....

[misexistentialist]

You can probably get two in Detroit.

Most people I tell this to don't believe it....

[mark-t]

... you probably won't either. That's okay, I'm used to it.

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.

Re:Where did you get your information?

[tverbeek]

The vast majority of stock trading does nothing whatsoever to raise capital for businesses. Most of it is a form of legal gambling.

Well then.

[Spewns]

I figured someone should point out how messed up the world is that a family's house not being foreclosed rests on some extremely bored rich guy with way too much money flushing $250,000+ down the toilet on trite, stupid shit like a comic book. I think this whole capitalism thing is being filmed. It's like The Truman Show. Except it's a very black comedy.

Re:Well then.

[gad_zuki!]

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.

Re:Well then.

[AutoReg]

I agree. We should have the Government take that bored rich guy's $250,000 and give it to the poor guy. After all, it wasn't that poor guy's fault that he mortgaged his home to start a business and failed. It would only be fair, that rich guy obviously has way too much.

Re:Where did you get your information?

[mcvos]

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.

Re:Where did you get your information?

[Rude Turnip]

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.