The financial difficulties that would eventually catch up with him had not yet made themselves visible in 2000. The IRS issues—a 2008 assessment of $666,000 for improper deductions; a 2009 filing in which he faced approximately $14 million in back taxes—were in the future. So was the sale of the various properties at losses, the Bel-Air estate that was listed at $35 million and sold for $7.8 million. In 2000, Cage was a wealthy man at the height of his commercial success.
All of which means that the theft of Action Comics No. 1 from his home in 2000 was not financially catastrophic in the immediate sense. He reportedly received insurance money for the loss, according to Detective Hrycyk’s statements to ABC News in 2011. The financial sting of the theft was cushioned by the payout. The more significant loss was the object itself—the copy of the most important comic book in the history of the medium, which had been in his possession and was now somewhere unknown.
The theft occurred at a party at Cage’s home, according to later accounts. The ABC News report from 2011 does not specify the party; the CGC UK account mentions that the comic “disappeared during a party at his home about four years later” after the 1996 purchase, placing the theft approximately in 2000. The 929nin.com article describes it as having been “stolen from Cage’s home in 2000, along with his copy of *Detective Comics* #27.” The Duluth News Tribune account mentions the comic was taken along with “other vintage comics,” and that the other missing comics included Detective Comics No. 1 and Detective Comics No. 27.