BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure

Subject: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Wesley S
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 08:18 PM

How cool is this? Superman saves the day:

Full story here


Superman rescues family from foreclosure

While packing up the home they expected to lose, a family finds their hero stashed in the basement.

Posted by Mai Ling at MSN Real Estate on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 10:19 AM

More than 70 years after Superman first saved the day in the pages of a comic book, the Man of Steel has reached out and saved a family in the real world.

Asylum reports that a family was packing up their belongings after their bank had started foreclosure proceedings, when they came across a box of comic books in the basement.

But this wasn't just any box, and the family suspected they'd struck gold when they discovered among the titles "Action Comics No. 1," the comic that introduced Superman to the world and brought to life the superhero genre, which remains popular to this day.

It also happens to be worth upward of $250,000. Asylum writes:

The house had been in the family's possession since the 1950s, which is probably when the wife's father stashed the issue in a box with some other, mere mortal titles.

When the family contacted Stephen Fishler, the co-owner of ComicConnect and Metropolis, he was naturally skeptical after receiving countless similar calls, of which "99.9%" turn out to be reprints, he told Asylum. But then they texted him a cell phone picture of its cover, which features Superman holding a car, and Fishler knew he'd found the key to comic book fans' collections all over the world.

The comic is expected to fetch more than a quarter-million dollars when it goes up for auction on ComicConnect -- and that's a low estimate. In February of this year, an unrestored copy of "Action Comic No. 1" sold for $1 million, according to the Los Angeles Times, followed a month later by the sale of another copy in better condition at $1.5 million.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 08:27 PM

Why would the house be in foreclosure if it has been in the family for 60 years? Surely it would have been paid off many times over by now?

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Wesley S
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 09:02 PM

From reading the story it sounds to me like the daughter bought the house from the parents.But I'm guessing.

"The house had been in the family's possession since the 1950s, which is probably when the wife's father stashed the issue in a box"

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 09:03 PM

How cool is that!

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 09:06 PM

Probably was refinanced at some point(s).

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 10:39 PM

That's best rescue I've ever heard of by Superman!

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 01:02 PM

I'm glad for the family.

But I can't help but think about what its says about our priorities as a society.

Shouldn't the headline be "Some people are stupid and self absorbed enough to spend $250,000 on a comic book."

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 02:28 PM

Well Jack - some people are willing to invest $250,000 on a signed Lloyd Loar mandolin. Because they know it's a good investment. They aren't being made anymore so they are bound to increase in value.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 04:22 PM

Why? Square wheels made of butter are rare too, but no-one collects them.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 04:44 PM

"Well Jack - some people are willing to invest $250,000 on a signed Lloyd Loar mandolin"

I think those people are silly too. Not as silly, mind you, but silly.

Also the people who pay $200.00 for a basketball ticket so that Lebron can be paid 15,000,000 per year and the people in San Diego who paid 1.5 million for 1000 square foot houses who ended up a million dollars underwater on their mortgages.

Pricing something based on what fools are willing to pay for it makes the buyer a fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 04:47 PM

If you can't see the difference between a square butter wheel and the art and rarity of the first Superman comic I won't be able to explain it to you. I never collected Barbies or train sets. But I can understand why someone else would.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 04:50 PM

I used to understand. I don't anymore. This current financial crisis has changed my view of economics.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: kendall
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 08:01 PM

What a great story! Did you ever wonder why bullets bounce off his chest, yet if they threw a gun at him he would duck?

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren
Date: 30 Jul 10 - 07:31 AM

Something like this happening for my son would make all his Christmasses, Birthdays and dreams come true. My son Neil has Asperger's a spectrum of Autism and one of the aspects of Autism is an almost obssessive interest in certain things be it music, lists of footballers, aircraft, art it could be anything. He has been collecting super hero comics for quite a while now including Marvel comics and he has boxes and boxes of them collected over the years from various events, car boot sales etc. amd all indexed and idividually wrapped in protective sellophane to keep it has pristine as possible. He lives in hope that one day that some of his comics will be valuable.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 03:48 AM

Ducking was probably just a reflex action....

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: jacqui.c
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 07:31 AM

What a terrific story.

It's good that some people are willing to pay big money for these things if it helps a family in this way. At least the money being spent by the wealthy, in this case, is 'trickling down' and back into the economy.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: EBarnacle
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 12:21 AM

Many years ago, I was at a coin show. Someone I believed was a friend sold me some English pennies, telling me the were worth a dollar. When I checked them our, they weren't. When I tried to return them, he told me that he had not lied--the coins had been worth a dollar to me at that time. Actually, it was a cheap lesson.

By the same token, all those smart guys who bought in at the top of the market or refinanced when they should have left well enough alone were doing what they thought was right for them at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 06:23 AM

Not sure of the dates and the exact details of this, but back in the fifties I read Stetson Kennedy's autobiographical 'I Rode With The Ku Klux Klan' in which he describes how the Superman comics were used as anti-racism propaganda against the Klan.
Mabe somebody could refresh my memory - please?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Rumncoke
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 02:11 PM

I had two copies of Action Comics no 1 - when I went to college in the 60's my mother got rid of hundreds - maybe thousands - of pounds worth of comics which I had bought second hand for pennies each week when I was at school.

I don't think I am over it even now.

Anne Croucher

Dorset, England

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 07:22 AM

I've seen a bumper sticker that says - "I used to be a millionaire until my mother threw out my baseball cards".

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 10:30 AM

I SOLD 100 baseball cards for the astronomical sum of $365 in 1971. Then about 20 years later I found they had gone ^UP...to around $20,000. They were from 1914-1915...from Cracker Jacks. Ty Cobb alone was $2000.

Ah, well... I bought folk music LPs with the money.

Anyone want some 1915 movie star cards? I have 77. Will take about what those baseball cards sold for in 1971. Fatty Arbuckle included!

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 11:01 PM

I had a copy of Action Comics #1 (June 1938) which I got off the comic book stand at a nearby drugstore when I was seven years old. Paid a whole dime for it (large percentage of my allowance). We were living in Pasadena, CA at the time.

In late 1940, when I was nine, we moved to Seattle. We had to pare down the possessions to an amount we could pack into a trailer and the trunk of the car. So it went out with a whole stack of other comics. And about a dozen Big-Little books, some of which are now also worth a fortune to collectors.

Ah, well. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Superman comic halts foreclosure
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 11:07 PM

Similar story... my family was in New Orleans from mid-1945 thru Nov. of 1947. There was a hurricane, and we were flooded...and my mother said "Get me OUT of here!" So we moved to Kansas, with me salvaging only a dozen or so comics that were dry enough to bother with. I had some nice ones, though not 38-39 age.

wishes....