• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Do any of you remove your comics from the slabs to make more space?
4 4

Started by William-James88,

108 posts in this topic

William-James88

William-James88

Posted
Posted (edited)

I want to preface that I have nothing against slabs, or CGC or any of this whole process. Especially since I collect Golden Age books, I am glad we have a service that lets me know if a comic I am purchasing has restoration or not. That being said, space is finite and slabs take a loooooooooooooooooooooot of space so I am considering removing some of the books from slabs I purchased and just keeping the label if ever I want to resell later. Especially when it comes to inexpensive midgrade books from the GA or SA era, like any Hawkman book that isn't number 4, and mid grade non key Fawcett books. I'm talking of the kind of books that sell guide whether raw or graded, I just bought them graded because that's what I found, not because I needed graded copies. It would also be fun to have them all raw as I can flip through a short box and see all the consecutive issues all at once.

My big hesitation though is that it feels wasteful. Time and money went into getting these books graded. 

Let me know!

Edited by William-James88
Link to comment
Share on other sites
lizards2

lizards2

Posted
Posted
On 2/5/2022 at 9:20 PM, William-James88 said:

haha, the post right below yours offers a nice contrast of views.

I just tried to upgrade a SA JLA from an 8.5 to a 9.2. I really should have checked the grader's notes. The 8.5 was a 9.0, and the 9.2 was a fugly 8.5/8.0.

Live and learn - cracked out 9.2 now on the sale block. :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rjpb

rjpb

Posted
Posted

While you still can't read them, you can crack them out of the outer slab and leave them in the inner well with label attached as a space saver. I've purchased a couple books like that, and while technically they're not really slabbed anymore, it leaves a measure grade confidence I suppose. 

I find slabs bulky and somewhat annoying, though I've left a few keeper purchases in them, and definitely leave most books I intend to sell in slabs if they come that way.  I can appreciate the added buyer confidence they allow, and the protection they largely give (SCS aside), but it is a pain that 20 take up the same space as 100 unslabbed books. I would rather grading companies had come up with a thin slab, with labels about half the height, but then they wouldn't have been able to add the nifty top label which does make organizing easier. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
MAR1979

MAR1979

Posted
Posted (edited)

I don't de-slab and space is an issue.  At first I got creative with existing space but that lasts only so long.  I now get rid of other stuff  I was storing like DVD's (after ripping them full iso style w/multiple backups) to make space.  At current rate of consumption my guess is all space I'm willing to use will be depleted by 2023.  To slow that down I've decided I will halt my submitting of Comics to CGC (150 books in 2021).  I don't sell comics and no longer feel the need for validation of what I own. That should extend my need for space until 2025/2026.

As for reading comics it's 2022 there are other ways to do that without touching my books :) I've been doing it since 2010 actually. On a 12.2 Tablet its very similar to having a Comic in hand. My Chromebook is somewhat like having a full sized magazine in hand.  I also can pinch and stretch a touch screen in order to adapt to my optical shortcomings.  Its very rare when i can't find a Digital Copy of book I want to read be it "official" (approx 75% of the time) or through a more dubious method :cool:

 

Edited by MAR1979
Link to comment
Share on other sites
shadroch

shadroch

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 2/6/2022 at 9:13 AM, wombat said:

And while it is great to say you are keeping the label that will only get you so far if you want to sell the book. 

It gets you no where if i'm the buyer. I can only imagine the reaction if a dealer at a show showed me a book and then produced a CGC label he said was associated with the book. 

If I'm buying a common book like X-Men 100, am I supposed to even care if you happen to have a cracked out label for a X-Men 100 in 9.0. 

Once a book is out of a slab, keeping the label is meaningless, to me. Telling me this was once a CGC X.X is as meaningful as saying it was once a factory fresh NM+.

What is to stop someone from cracking out an Avengers 7.0, selling the book raw as an 8.0 and foisting off his raw 6.0 undercopy as the former 7.0 that he has the label to show as proof?

You can rent a 5X5 storage unit in almost any region for a couple hundred dollars a year. Surely it is more economical to use that extra space to store items than to deslab a book just to save a little space.  Get creative.  Raise your bed up a few inches and you can fit ten or more long boxes under it.  If you have kids, that's ten boxes per bed.

I've seen people use long boxes as tv stands. 

Properly assembled drawerboxes can be stacked six boxes high. That gives you the ability to store 180 slabs in 18 inches of floor space. 

Buy a few jhooks and transform a room by using your slabs as literal wallpaper.

Be creative. 

 

Edited by shadroch
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Number 6

Number 6

Posted
Posted
On 2/5/2022 at 7:24 PM, William-James88 said:

I'm talking of the kind of books that sell guide whether raw or graded, I just bought them graded because that's what I found, not because I needed graded copies.

I think the above part of the initial post is key.

I you didn’t pay any kind of “slab premium”, if you know for a reasonably certainty that keeping the book slabbed is never going to add any kind of significant premium, if you had no interest in owning a slabbed copy, only wanted the actual book and only paid what you were comfortable paying for the book itself then I would say by all means remove the books if that’s what you would like to do. 
 

I don’t think saving space would be the main or only reason for removing books from CGC holders, that certainly is a plus…especially if you’re someone who really didn’t have any interest in having CGC graded books in your collection to begin with. 
 

As far as saving the label for resale, when I’ve sold cracked-out books with the blue label they always sell faster and for slightly more than if I had sold the book without the label, but it’s never a huge premium so saving the label is really more about reference than a resell strategy.  If you paid a significant CGC premium when buying the book slabbed saving the label won’t do much to recoup that (doesn’t sound like that’s what you’ve done anyway). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
MAR1979

MAR1979

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 2/6/2022 at 11:59 AM, shadroch said:

It gets you no where if i'm the buyer. I can only imagine the reaction if a dealer at a show showed me a book and then produced a CGC label he said was associated with the book. 

If I'm buying a common book like X-Men 100, am I supposed to even care if you happen to have a cracked out label for a X-Men 100 in 9.0. 

Once a book is out of a slab, keeping the label is meaningless, to me. Telling me this was once a CGC X.X is as meaningful as saying it was once a factory fresh NM+.

What is to stop someone from cracking out an Avengers 7.0, selling the book raw as an 8.0 and foisting off his raw 6.0 undercopy as the former 7.0 that he has the label to show as proof?

You can rent a 5X5 storage unit in almost any region for a couple hundred dollars a year. Surely it is more economical to use that extra space to store items than to deslab a book just to save a little space.  Get creative.  Raise your bed up a few inches and you can fit ten or more long boxes under it.  If you have kids, that's ten boxes per bed.

I've seen people use long boxes as tv stands. 

Properly assembled drawerboxes can be stacked six boxes high. That gives you the ability to store 180 slabs in 18 inches of floor space. 

Buy a few jhooks and transform a room by using your slabs as literal wallpaper.

Be creative. 

 

You post reminds me of all the places around my home i have planted hardwired NAS'  :)

Love the part about under the Kid's beds  although can not imagine that being "safe" for most

 

Edited by MAR1979
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
4 4
Go to topic listing