I am confused! Why do people crack open their CGC graded comics? 2 2

[Cyclops]

I was surfing online and I found this video:

 

 

Why do people crack open their CGC comic books? Are books going to get damaged if kept into the CGC case (maybe paper will deteriorate quicker)?

 

 

 

I got my first slab when I came back to the hobby a few years ago. I realized pretty quickly that my OCD had a problem with not being able to read the comic. So out it came. I like the look of them in the slab, but I can't stand not being able to open them up and

 

Some people like to read, touch, smell and fondle their comics.

[Artboy99]

I have cracked several slabs. Here are the reasons:

 

1. the slab arrived or was cracked/broken already so I took the book out and put it in a mylar.

2. I sold the book and the buyer didn't want the book slabbed. In fact the buyer wouldn't buy the book unless it was raw.

3. The book's cover was detached and the cover was sliding dangerously out of position inside the slab and I felt the cover would get damaged if I left it inside the slab. I cracked the book out.

4. I have a large run of a title that is all high grade but it is all raw. I purchase a book I am missing from the run that is a CGC 9.6 but I crack it out to put the book with the rest of the collection.

 

Lots of reasons to crack a book out.

[shadroch]

I'll buy some slabbed books if they are really cheap and crack them open just to reuse the shells.

 

I do the same. What's your method for reusing them? Do you put a book in with a bag and board or do you some something more fancy?

 

Bag with a mylite or mylar. Nothing fancy.

[budsbundy]

I'll buy some slabbed books if they are really cheap and crack them open just to reuse the shells.

 

I do the same. What's your method for reusing them? Do you put a book in with a bag and board or do you some something more fancy?

 

Bag with a mylite or mylar. Nothing fancy.

And then I put the label from the cgc case inside the bag on the back side of the board, that way you can see the book, and then flip it over and see the grade

[MisterX]

I crack out my slabs, too.

 

But I'm wondering --

 

Does anyone have a point where they say, if the book is worth X amount, or I paid X amount (X being, in your opinion, a lot of money, where the book takes on an investment quality), then it is better to just leave the book in the slab afterall?

 

This is something I'm wrestling with at the moment...

[Cyclops]

I crack out my slabs, too.

 

But I'm wondering --

 

Does anyone have a point where they say, if the book is worth X amount, or I paid X amount (X being, in your opinion, a lot of money, where the book takes on an investment quality), then it is better to just leave the book in the slab afterall?

 

This is something I'm wrestling with at the moment...

 

I don't crack out 9.6's or 9.8's. I've had two 9.8's in the past that I kept until I decided to sell them. Those were Bronze and Coppper, though. Modern I probably wouldn't care unless it was actually hard to get in high grade.

 

The only slabbed book I have at the moment is a book I specifically bought for "investment" purposes, so I won't be cracking that one.

[Jaydogrules]

I crack out my slabs, too.

 

But I'm wondering --

 

Does anyone have a point where they say, if the book is worth X amount, or I paid X amount (X being, in your opinion, a lot of money, where the book takes on an investment quality), then it is better to just leave the book in the slab afterall?

 

This is something I'm wrestling with at the moment...

 

Yes. For me, any book that becomes worth or is worth more than $200 gets slabbed. And I won't even touch a "key" that isn't in a slab already. It's just too expensive of a gamble. (thumbs u

 

-J.

[ChrisInBaltimore]

I've been tempted to buy low grade books and crack 'em out. I generally try to buy high grade books- that I can afford- and would rather not crack them. I don't plan to sell, but if I got in a pinch they'd be the first to go.

[Gabagool]

I see no logical reason at all to open up a slabbed comic.... you payed to have it graded, or you bought it already slabbed, sooo why open it ?

 

the handful of comics i have graded and slabbed up are going to stay that way with whatever grade i have. if i decide i'd like to read that issue i'll just search for a digital copy and read it here at work..

 

Everytime someone opens a slabbed comic, a kitten gets punched.....

 

 

 

[ChrisInBaltimore]

I see no logical reason at all to open up a slabbed comic.... you payed to have it graded, or you bought it already slabbed, sooo why open it ?

 

the handful of comics i have graded and slabbed up are going to stay that way with whatever grade i have. if i decide i'd like to read that issue i'll just search for a digital copy and read it here at work..

 

Everytime someone opens a slabbed comic, a kitten gets punched.....

 

 

 

Hasn't it been discussed that a CGC slab is not as good for conservation as a mylar? Wouldn't that be the logical reason?

[Number 6]

I crack out my slabs, too.

 

But I'm wondering --

 

Does anyone have a point where they say, if the book is worth X amount, or I paid X amount (X being, in your opinion, a lot of money, where the book takes on an investment quality), then it is better to just leave the book in the slab afterall?

 

This is something I'm wrestling with at the moment...

 

Yes. For me, any book that becomes worth or is worth more than $200 gets slabbed. And I won't even touch a "key" that isn't in a slab already. It's just too expensive of a gamble. (thumbs u

 

-J.

 

+1

 

The $200 neighborhood and/or key seems to be about where I feel the need to slab or re-slab books I've cracked out.

 

There's some exceptions. Been able to pick some nice CGC 9.4/9.6 copies of Wrightson Swamp Things for around $100, sometimes quite a bit less. But it seems like no matter how high grade, when cracked out they become practically worthless. So I just keep them slabbed.

 

Neal Adams Batman and Detective's get slabbed regardless of whether they're worth $200 or not. So the line of demarcation is kind of arbitrary.

 

It's hard to draw that line sometimes because one of the main reasons I crack my books is because I like having all my books together. Bad enough I have to separate the pre-'72 books from the rest because of mylar size, now I have to have a separate box for slabs as well.

 

But again, I guess there will have to exceptions. Most of my cracked-out Silver Aquaman books were in the 8.0-9.0 range, doesn't seem to be a big hit on those in terms of value. But I did purchase a couple of 9.2s to complete my run. I like having them with the others but in terms of value they probably should be re-slabbed.

[namisgr]

Everytime someone opens a slabbed comic, a kitten gets punched.....

 

 

Lulz, guess I've punched a lot of kittens. I suspect the powerful attachment to slabs is from a newer generation of collectors, ones too young to have bought books off the rack that turned out to be valuable after many decades, and who haven't bought back issues in the unslabbed or cracked out state so they could build runs to be read and re-read. Even putting aside the chance to access the entire comic rather than just the covers, to me comics are much more beautiful in mylars rather than slabs, and most beautiful of all in hand.

 

For me, comics are for collecting, slabs are for selling.

 

[EC ed]

Another random point to be made on the matter of cracking books out - for posterity, I make it a habit of taking scans of the front and back of the books in the slab before I crack them out. Seems to be a good practice.

 

This way, if/when I ever sell the book, I can show the buyer both the pre-crack and current images to give them some assurance that 1) the book I'm selling them is indeed the same book that was in the slab (most books have distinguishing characteristics that make this obvious), and 2) (assuming I've done my custodial job properly) the condition of the book hasn't changed relative to when it was in the slab, meaning the assigned grade then is effectively still the grade now.

 

For a buyer who values slabbing primarily for the resto check and independent grade assignments, this base-covering minimizes resale value loss.

[chrisco37]

Since this has been brought up....

 

The census always needs to be considered as a "most potential copies" situation.

 

That is, it's not really a representation of what IS, but rather, what could potentially be.

 

For example:

 

If Book X #17 has 357 copies, of various flavors, on the census...that doesn't mean there are 357 slabs that contain Book X #17, necessarily. There might be...but the reality is, there are probably only 342, or 353, or 321, or 62 copies of the book still in actual, physical slabs.

 

The census represents, in this case, a CEILING, rather than an actual head count. You know that there aren't *more than*357 slabs out there.

 

There. Now, anyone who has been enlightened by this post, please submit $5 to my Paypal account.

 

 

Does this mean I should revise the count on Sandman 8B's? Dammit!

[RockMyAmadeus]

Since this has been brought up....

 

The census always needs to be considered as a "most potential copies" situation.

 

That is, it's not really a representation of what IS, but rather, what could potentially be.

 

For example:

 

If Book X #17 has 357 copies, of various flavors, on the census...that doesn't mean there are 357 slabs that contain Book X #17, necessarily. There might be...but the reality is, there are probably only 342, or 353, or 321, or 62 copies of the book still in actual, physical slabs.

 

The census represents, in this case, a CEILING, rather than an actual head count. You know that there aren't *more than*357 slabs out there.

 

There. Now, anyone who has been enlightened by this post, please submit $5 to my Paypal account.

 

 

Does this mean I should revise the count on Sandman 8B's? Dammit!

 

Yes. Duh.

 

This is...LITERALLY...what the next generation is saying:

 

GASP!!!

 

YOU TOOK IT OUT OF THE SLAB!!

 

NOW IT'S WORTHLESS!!!

 

It's the 1990's for a new generation!

 

[FineCollector]

I suspect the powerful attachment to slabs is from a newer generation of collectors, ones too young to have bought books off the rack that turned out to be valuable after many decades, and who haven't bought back issues in the unslabbed or cracked out state so they could build runs to be read and re-read.

 

A lot of that is our fault. The wisdom of those who survived the 90's is to buy what you like regardless of value... but you really want to stock up on keys... money, money, money. Anyone wonder why 20 year olds are asking for keys of characters they've never read, and ignoring everything else?

[Cyclops]

I see no logical reason at all to open up a slabbed comic.... you payed to have it graded, or you bought it already slabbed, sooo why open it ?

 

the handful of comics i have graded and slabbed up are going to stay that way with whatever grade i have. if i decide i'd like to read that issue i'll just search for a digital copy and read it here at work..

 

Everytime someone opens a slabbed comic, a kitten gets punched.....

 

 

 

 

You buy it slabbed because it's been graded and checked for restoration by a neutral 3rd party.

[lizards2]

I crack out my slabs, too.

 

But I'm wondering --

 

Does anyone have a point where they say, if the book is worth X amount, or I paid X amount (X being, in your opinion, a lot of money, where the book takes on an investment quality), then it is better to just leave the book in the slab afterall?

 

This is something I'm wrestling with at the moment...

 

I haven't cracked out my Avengers 3 in 9.0 yet. Maybe with the right amount of Wild Turkey some night....., :think:

[lizards2]

Everytime someone opens a slabbed comic, a kitten gets punched.....

 

 

Lulz, guess I've punched a lot of kittens. I suspect the powerful attachment to slabs is from a newer generation of collectors, ones too young to have bought books off the rack that turned out to be valuable after many decades, and who haven't bought back issues in the unslabbed or cracked out state so they could build runs to be read and re-read. Even putting aside the chance to access the entire comic rather than just the covers, to me comics are much more beautiful in mylars rather than slabs, and most beautiful of all in hand.

 

For me, comics are for collecting, slabs are for selling.

 

I've cracked every slab I've bought from you, Bob.

[Supa-Bad-Mofo]

I see no logical reason at all to open up a slabbed comic.... you payed to have it graded, or you bought it already slabbed, sooo why open it ?

 

the handful of comics i have graded and slabbed up are going to stay that way with whatever grade i have. if i decide i'd like to read that issue i'll just search for a digital copy and read it here at work..

 

Everytime someone opens a slabbed comic, a kitten gets punched.....

 

 

 

I agree 100%! No logical reason. If you want to touch, smell and read... buy a rag to go along with your graded book. The only exception to his rule may be a mega key in a case where you can't afford two copies.

 

On anther note, the argument that CGC graded books don't bring a premium is generally a bunch of . They do in most cases...especially key books.