When Doing a Trade

[Exhibitman]

Bob, isn't the outcome taxable but effectively tax neutral if the parties trade evenly valued items? Isn't the income on that deal zero?

More to the OP, one of the things I've missed about shows is the ability to trade. Every year at the National there's a boxing collector who sits down with me the first evening and trades for items in my sale inventory. We throw all sorts of stuff on the trading bloc and see who gets what done. Can last for hours and get as complex as a multi-team NBA salary cap trade but usually works out because he wants rarities and I want stuff that will move at the show better than the rare items. In some ways my end is easy because I put price tags on my inventory, so what I think the item is worth is already out there and all we have to dicker over is the value of his stuff.

The difficulty that I have trading for my PC is that I've always been drawn to quirky, offbeat, non-mainstream cards and memorabilia. How do you value items that are unique or that have few known examples that haven't sold in a long time? I certainly can't rely on a single 2011 sale as a comparable. So I analogize to similar cards, but there is always that unknowable variable that only an auction result can establish. Case in point: someone recently tried to work with me on a rare card I had, but no matter what we tried we simply could not agree on a base value because the card never sells. I had a list of cards I thought were comparable but he disagreed. Ultimately, I was pleased to keep the card.