[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by BobC

Depends on whether or not you are treating your sales, and resulting losses, as a Dealer, Collector/Hobbyist, or possibly as an Investor.

If a Dealer in business, you can fully offset all your loss sales against your gain sales, in determining your resulting net income or loss from the business as a whole. Any resulting net loss is then fully deductible against all your other taxable income for that year.

If a Collector/Hobbyist, your loss sales are not supposed to be deductible against your gains from any other sales, or any other taxable income, ever. Specifically read the paragraph titled "Losses realized on disposition of collectible assets", from the attached Tax Advisor article link provided.

https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues...lectibles.html

If an Investor, you can offset the losses from sales of your collectible investment assets against gains from other sales, and potentially have overall net losses be deductible against other income as well.

The linked tax article goes over many of the things I've been posting about all along. It also reiterates how confusing and complex these issues and questions can be, and how thinking and planning ahead can be very helpful.

Thanks, as always, Bob. Certainly is a gray area on the investor vs collector front, no? While most of us buy cards because we love them. We also know history has proven it is a safe place to park money. When we buy something we might not start thinking about the exit but selling is always a distinct possibility either to fund another card purchase or to pay for a kid's college education, etc etc. I doubt many of us buy thinking we will never sell anything we have acquired but maybe some here have made that commitment. I think it would be nearly impossible for the IRS to classify any of us as absolute collectors.