paqart

If open corners aren't normal, that is a different story. It sounded to me like you and others were saying they were normal. This is because (I guess) I was conflating people saying that warped labels, etc were normal for "everything you found is normal." No one seemed surprised by the open corner, possibly because it is hard to see, though I thought the slip of paper under the corner illustrated the issue well (and now know better). That helped create the illusion that the comments were all-inclusive. I'm still going to be wary of these online, but if I see them in person and can handle them to look for this kind of thing, that I can live with.

That is true. I am fairly sure I would have immediately thought "damaged holder" not "tampered holder, swapped comic." Thanks to this thread, I was hyper alert to any differences between this holder and the ones in my collection, which are all either new, undamaged and at the bottom of my pile, or from another company. The real issues though, were apparent moisture damage that disagreed with the grade on the label. An "8.0 off-white" shouldn't be warped from top to bottom, with pages near the center top fatter (due to moisuture) than the sides of the pages. Also, these pages are visibly yellow on the edges, not white. Maybe they were white inside, but the yellowed edges aren't a good sign.

These don't bother me. What bugs me is the open corner. As I wrote, the comic could have easily been removed. I was tempted to do it, but changed my mind after reading your warning. I don't have it any more because I sent it in, so I'll send a drawing of what was going on. It was easy to show if I was holding it in my hands, but not when lying on a table. EDIT: I must have gotten so used to centimeters living in Europe for over a decade that I forgot what inches looked like. I just looked at a measuring tape and see that the gap labeled "1/4"" in the drawing is closer to a full inch.

I just realized why you weren't convinced about the corner. It didn't occur to me there was another way to slide the paper in as I did, but you guys are oviously on top of these things. I slid it through the open corner. You guys were probably thinking I slid it through the normally open sides. It didn't occur to me to try that, and I didn't know there was such a thing as a slab with open sides. However, it went through the corner. The only reason I used a thin strip like that is that happened to be what was sitting on a table nearby. I could have put a full sheet of typing paper in there if I'd felt like it.

No. Closest was when CGC damaged a comic and offered to reholder for free. I figured it wasn't worth it, so I didn't send it in. In that case, the holder was fine, but the comic's cover was detached. I wrote it off as a dead loss.

It's hard to read through some of your typos, but I get the gist. You have convinced me it is a "popped" older slab. Meaning, the exterior thin label at the top is normal, the wavy inner label is normal, as is the pale gray color of the grade. You have also somewhat convinced me that an open corner is normal. What you have also convinced me of is that because these are apparently normal, there is no way I want to be buying these from dealers who agree with you about this. By "this", I mean the open corner and any related damage. That would mean I could expect to run into more slabs like this, where the CGC grade may or may not bear a close relationship to the comic inside. This one for instance, clearly had moisture damage that likely postdated the grade, possibly due to the open corner. I'd rather just buy what looks good to me, but I can't tell what that is if I can't open the book. And this gets back to the holder tampering that started this thread. Admittedly, that's what I thought I had in my hands when I unpacked the CMA 51 because the comic is not an off-white 8.0 with moisture damage and yellow pages, but the idea of an untrustworthy CGC grade is related. Frankly, I find the apparent normality of open corners much more worrying than Zaneglor, because Zaneglor is more predictable and likely smaller scale.

I'm sorry I didn't slide it up farther then. It seemed to me this was good enough to be a proof of concept. After all, if the corner is detached (it is) and it isn't sealed on the edges, then it can be lifted all the way to the corners. But that's fine, because you can't see it. I could feel a little flex about halfway up, which would have risked cracking if I'd gone further, though the plastic was separated up to the corners. It's just that the gap was widest at the bottom, and wide enough at the middles to slide the mylar out with a bit of care. In any event, the opinion that counts here is mine when it comes to my buying decisions, and I'm not buying more slabs after this. Ironically, if not for the comments on this board, I would have been happy to buy more, and assumed this one experience was an aberration. Instead, you and others have convinced me that this kind of thing is not only common, but dealers who sell these don't think it is a big deal. That is what has decided me. If I had known it to begin with, I never would have started buying slabs in the first place. So, I'm still in the market for a CMA 51 in VF+, raw only.

It's tough to show without holding it open, but when I held it from the top, the bottom was hanging open. Also, the comic was sliding all over inside. When it arrived, part of the inner mylar seemed to cross over into the label area. When it's lying flat, the top comes down thanks to gravity, but since it was broken, I thought people who are used to seeing these thing (I'm not) would know what to look for. The fact that none of the commenters can tell that it's popped tells me that this is a form of broken corner that you haven't trained yourself to see. I was very tempted to slide the comic out, which absolutely could have been done with the gap involved, but thanks to your earlier admonition about not making it any worse, I didn't. Also, it's pretty clear the comic had significant moisture damage. Whether that is because of the broken corner or it's a different comic doesn't matter to me, it isn't a CGC 8.0 now, nor was it when it was shipped. This was it for me, I'm avoiding slabs (not just CGC) from now on, particularly GA. If I find something I want and it happens to be in a slab, it's coming out and staying out. Also, I am not trusting the grade. As far as I'm concerned, I'm back to the old days of haggling about the grade, except slabbed comics get an automatic deduction because the interior can't be inspected.

Since it opens almost 1/4", I have no problem beliieving I could slide the book out. However, I got a refund, so I didn't want to do something like that. In any event, if this is normal, then to hell with slabs. My opinion, this was open enough that a) I couldn't trust the comic in the slab was the comic on the label, and b) even if it was, the damaged slab allowed moisture damage, meaning the comic inside was no longer a legit 8.0. Either way, the slab is meaningless or worse, because it makes it difficult to inspect the comic and allows damage or tampering. Actually, I have to thank you gents for your remarks, because they've made me much more sour on the idea of buying slabs than I was this morning when I shipped it back to the seller.

Not a chance. This was the best packing job I've ever seen. And if you think it looks fine, maybe you should stop buying pre-opened slabs. I have over 100, and every one of them is sealed tight. This one could lose the comic if picked up by the top two corners.

No I'm not, but thanks for trying to lend a hand.

I see. I've never seen a case like this before. I took my better shots just now, here they are. You can see that it would be easy to slip the comic out. At least, I think you can see it in the photo where the strip of paper is slipped in from the corner.

I'm going to use my good camera to get a picture of this. It's basically a microscope. It should be able to do it. When I picked up the slab out of the box, the whole corner opened by about a quarter inch. At rest, it looks like this.

The corner is separated.

The case is literally open on the bottom left corner. The entire comic can be slipped out.