Quote:
Originally Posted by Volod
I'm wondering what you guys who liberate all of your cards from slabs are using these days to safely do that. A while ago, I think some were employing bolt cutters and other crude implements. Since 99% of my collection is raw, when I purchased a few slabs a while ago, I tried to carefully remove the cards, but wound up creasing one of them - a 1954 Bowman Schoendienst - that was graded EX+. So, I swore off using that kind of violence entirely. What common tool does the removal without any chance of damaging the card?
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My best advice here would be don't overthink it. I once at least halved the value of an EX '56 Clemente because I cracked the SGC slab over the top instead of just prying it apart at the sides - which they will do easily. Just put a flathead screwdriver in the seal, pop it and work your way around - and some SGC slabs get to the point where you can just pull them apart with your hands.
PSA for me works best by taking a pair of pliers and snipping off one corner, then working from that around the edges with a flathead to break the seal. I have not tried this yet on some of the newer "L1" or whatever PSA slabs - where the plastic is supposedly a lot more dense / pliable and less prone to brittle cracking - but I suppose it's still possible.
Beckett / other slabs I have less experience with. But I remember that Beckett works kind of like a shoebox, where one side of the slab sits on of the other like a box lid. They are more of a pain in the @, but the inner sleeve Beckett uses generally insures you aren't going to hurt the card inside unless you are just being super careless.
05-11-2025, 06:41 AM
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