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

[shadroch]

If you put a thick piece of plywood on top of the boxes, and the mattress on top of that, they will be fine. Use drawerboxes and all the books are easily accessed, as well.

[707comics]

Personally I don't have any desire to remove them from the slabs ... otherwise I would just buy raw. Just my 2 cents

[rexinnih]

To each their own, but to me, buying slabbed or having books slabbed is meant to keep them as is. I would never by a book removed from the slab and sure this drops the value if ever down the line your intention is to sell. 

[WolverineX]

many collectors crack their slabs to read their books.  If its going to be with them forever, who cares.

If you plan to resell the books, then keep them in the slabs to keep the premium. 

[AnthonyTheAbyss]

Why not got to the source of the issue?  Tell CGC to bring back the thin slabs instead of these hulking monstrosities.

 

***They also weigh a ton!

[707comics]

On 2/6/2022 at 9:54 AM, Wolverinex said:

many collectors crack their slabs to read their books.  If its going to be with them forever, who cares.

If you plan to resell the books, then keep them in the slabs to keep the premium. 

I guess it depends on the genre / titles / publishers you collect? Many books have become public domain so you can read them in their entirety online for free. I see they are up to over 40k issues online now on just comicbookplus alone.

https://comicbookplus.com/
https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/

[WolverineX]

On 2/6/2022 at 1:13 PM, 707comics said:

I guess it depends on the genre / titles / publishers you collect? Many books have become public domain so you can read them in their entirety online for free. I see they are up to over 40k issues online now on just comicbookplus alone.

https://comicbookplus.com/
https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/

That's cool.. any marvel n or dc?

[707comics]

On 2/6/2022 at 10:17 AM, Wolverinex said:

That's cool.. any marvel n or dc?

Unfortunately no .... I don't think they have much in the public domain

[William-James88]

On 2/6/2022 at 1:17 PM, Wolverinex said:

That's cool.. any marvel n or dc?

Technically yes. The DC characters which were initially Fawcett characters (like Freddy/Captain Marvel Jr) are public domain.

https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_Marvel_Jr.

You could legally write a comic or story starring Captain Marvel Jr and publish it. Just read the fine print in that link above.

[William-James88]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:21 PM, Number 6 said:

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). 

Yes, I definitely tried to make that precision clear. This is not an all or nothing. Books that I may sell one day will stay slabbed, books that have defects that would lead others to downgrade too harshly stay slabbed, higher grade books stay slabbed, big keys where a .5 makes a big difference stay slabbed. But there's just books that I feel have no business being in a slab and bring no added value in one rather than out. Like this one which I purchased for less than the grading fees.

Edited February 7, 2022 by William-James88

[lizards2]

On 2/6/2022 at 8:47 PM, William-James88 said:

But there's just books that I feel have no business being in a slab and bring no added value in one rather than out. 

 

There is just too much carp in a slab. Like 95% of it. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

No.

[Lord Gemini]

Oof. No deslabbing for me. If I'm out of space, I MAKE space somehow.

[MetalPSI]

On 2/6/2022 at 11:06 AM, AnthonyTheAbyss said:

Why not got to the source of the issue?  Tell CGC to bring back the thin slabs instead of these hulking monstrosities.

 

***They also weigh a ton!

They can't. The manufacturer of the plastic they were using essentially left the market, either bankruptcy or whatever, that material just isn't available anymore

Instead of going with whomever supplies the competition, they went with this, supposedly, "superior" product. 

You know how these things go

My cousins friends mother in law brothers nephew makes this plastic, lets give them our business 

[D2]

I crack CGC cases all the time for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes I crack CGC cases just because I like the sound of it...

 

...AHHhhhhHHhh...

 

On an entirely separate note, I'm thinking on updating my profile picture to my selfie (see below), thoughts?

[William-James88]

On 2/7/2022 at 3:38 PM, D2 said:

I crack CGC cases all the time for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes I crack CGC cases just because I like the sound of it...

 

...AHHhhhhHHhh...

 

HAHAHAHA

[lizards2]

OK – this thread inspired me to get busy tonight. Monday night is Bible Study Night here at home – my wife hosts the ladies, and me and the heathen dog get locked in – usually the bedroom. Tonight, the laundry room. Which is the only room in the house with enough adequate lighting for me to grade books.

Forget grading that Weird War Tales collection I need to sell…,  that I have already scanned. Time to crack some books out, inventoried, and get them put away in the boxes.

Here for your perusal, is me cracking 10 slabs for semi-permanent insertion into my collection.
Adventure 319 CGC 8.5
G.I. Combat 108 CGC 8.5
Superboy 129 CGC 9.4
Superboy 207 CGC 9.4
Sea Devils 17 CGC 9.2
Showcase 68 CGC 9.4
Green Lantern 74 9.4
Showcase 36 CGC 9.0
Atom 27 PGX 9.2
Wonder Woman 218 CGC 9.4

So…, pardon the carppy cell phone photos, blurriness and glare. The cracking and photography were done and put together in just under two hours.

I would ask you jack@sses to wait until I finish posting, before you begin your jack@assery, but I know from experience, that will never happen. 

Amen.

[lizards2]

Music – Check! Gore Gore Girls – recommended by jimmers. Libations courtesy of Wild Turkey, the good old fashioned Jerk Juice. Recommend by jerks everywhere, but particularly here.

Tools – get some!

Inventory Battle Book – Check!

Chief Grader and Bottle Washer – Jiggyford, my assistant, and Cockelier Extraordinaire. Camera shy. Works for treats!

The Victims:

Drunk jack@zz who hasn’t figured out selfies, but knows how to work the mirror…,

The first couple books are purposefully pretty photo intensive, so that if you’re not familiar with cracking the various slab iterations, you will gain the knowledge of how to do it yourself.

[lizards2]

Adventure 319 CGC 8.5 pages

New slab version. Supposedly an 8.5 OW/W pages. I would call it a nice 9.0 OW pages.  SCORE!!! But before you write me off, you got to read about the other books.

I only have to break out the wrecking bar for the new version of the slabs – heavy and blood-thirsty they are. When you are done, you know you’ve been through a battle of epic proportions.

New slabs you pretty much have to go through the bottom, as it is the most vulnerable. (I know Kav, I know.) 

Crack the bottom posts and deliver the baby through the breach.

Out and breathing.

New outer well - popped the label.

Clipping open edge.

Clipping top edge.

Top and open edge clipped.

Peeling the inner well.

Delivering from the inner well.

Tamping the label down into the M2 / Fullback using a cheap backing board.

Never use tape around comics, kids. Always use 3M flags.

Finished product. No fugly slab, just clean mylar.

I did not have a copy of this book, so pretty happy with the outcome.
 

 

[Larryw7]

I do a good job cracking the slab, but those new inner wells are a PITA.  The old slabs were a cinch. Just crack 'em with your hands, and the well had more protection around the book. I hate "improvements".