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Although I do enjoy collecting comic books, there is another specialty that I do that I enjoy much more. But first allow me to ask this question:

How many of you, after buying a graded book or grading a book, cracked open the case it was enclosed in?

I’ll need to put a poll plugin (if anyone knows of a good Wordpress one, leave a comment for the link) so I could track the percentages. Anyway, please leave a comment if you have or are thinking of doing this with any of your comic books.

I digress…

Well, today I cracked open three cases for a customer of mine. I have never done this before so I initially asked my good friend Reynold Jay of Back Issue Comics how to open a case. Here is how you do it:

1. Wash your hands really good. You don’t want dirt or any marks on the comic.
2. Get a screwdriver. A thin longer one works great.
3. Take your encased book and pry open each corner. An easy way to get the screwdriver in is take one of the sides, go to the middle of it and pull up on the top and pull down on the bottom. This will cause a gap, once you see the opening insert the screwdriver.
4. Move the screwdrive along the edge around to each corner causing the corner to pop or break.
5. Once all corners are loose, take the plastic insert that holds the comic book out of the case.
6. Take out the grade label and set it aside.
7. To get the comic book out, you will need to cut across the bottom of the book (due to this insert being air-tight). Once the edge is cut, you can “carefully” slip the comic book out.

Whew! I know that was a lot to write and just in-case you didn’t get it, I found a neat little video to show you how it’s done.

Now, what is more enjoyable for me besides collecting comic books?

Are you ready for it? Ok, it’s Prepping Comic Books! I specialize in bringing those comic book duds to a luster (per se) so they get a higher grade if you were to send them in to get graded by CGC or PGX.

I will explain in another post what this entails and how you can get your comic books prepped BEFORE you send them in for grading. Please leave your comments on your thoughts concerning CGC cases and high-grade comic books.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Patrick