Superlative; To Open Or Not To Open

[seanerster]

I apologize if this thread is repetitive, but I wanted the valued opinion of board members. Does it hurt the value or re-sale value to remove Superlative cards from their ultra crappy and cheap looking top loaders and keep them in awesome one touch magnet holders?
A good friend of mine has removed all his, and I admire his courage because I have been unable to bring myself to do the same. It seems from the few people I have spoken to in person that people are split 50/50 on the issue. So, once again, I turn to the trusted confines of the HI boards for the opinions of my fellow collectors.
I have some very valuable Superlative cards and I would hate to hurt their value without having done my full research first.
Thank you all in advance for your advice and opinions.
-Sean

 

[FrankToronto]

First, if the seal is broken ITG will not offer replacement should there be any damage. Makes sense.

Second, personally, I'm a fan of cards as they were pulled. I would have an "it's not mint" perspective even though the card may be pristine mint. However, if it were a card that I know under no circumstances would I ever let it leave my PC then I may consider it OK. On the same token, I may still want it sealed in that circumstance.

In general, some people will not be in favour of it so it may affect value since those people not in favour will result in less demand for that card.

 

[OilersRule]

I have a few nice PC items from last year's Superlative that I love to look at when the mood strikes me, but every time I took one of them out and held them in my hand with that god awful taped toploader, I cringed.

So one day I said the heck with it and put them in shiny new magnetic cases, and in my mind I enhanced the value of the card ten fold, regardless of how it may/may not hurt its street value.

If its a card you want to keep for a long time, and you get that same feeling, I'd recommend doing the same as I think you will enjoy the card way more!

 

[SHedberg]

I apologize if this thread is repetitive, but I wanted the valued opinion of board members. Does it hurt the value or re-sale value to remove Superlative cards from their ultra crappy and cheap looking top loaders and keep them in awesome one touch magnet holders?
A good friend of mine has removed all his, and I admire his courage because I have been unable to bring myself to do the same. It seems from the few people I have spoken to in person that people are split 50/50 on the issue. So, once again, I turn to the trusted confines of the HI boards for the opinions of my fellow collectors.
I have some very valuable Superlative cards and I would hate to hurt their value without having done my full research first.
Thank you all in advance for your advice and opinions.
-Sean

If you plan on selling them, leave them in the original case. Like you said, 50/50, if you remove them you are potentially losing 50% of your bidders. If you plan on keeping them, take em out if you want.

 

[THERUSSIANRCKT]

Sean,

So many of the seals broke on my Superlative cards, I removed them all and placed them in nicer holders. In doing so, I found most of the cards were warped also which probably helped contribute to the seals breaking. I think over time, the seals are going to break on most of them anyway. By the way, was the warping of ITG cards ever addressed by the good doc?

 

[SkyFire47]

i freed my lone superlative cards from its case. it enjoys the safety of a one touch magnetic holder now.

 

[FrozenInferno]

After seeing this thread and thinking about it some more, I finally decided to break my Tretiak Superlative autograph free from it's top-loader and put it into a One-Touch. I plan on keeping it for my PC so I'm not overly concerned about resale value.

As for warping, my Superlative autograph is perfect but I can see my Tretiak Ultimate Jersey/Auto has a bit of warp in it. It might be worse than it looks, but the slab is keeping it from getting too bad. Maybe it's just the glue used in the game-used pieces or the stickers, who knows. Good question to ask in the chat room!

 

[leafs4_cup]

As others have said, if it's for your PC then crack away. I have even cracked PC cards out of their Ultimate holders to present them in a more pleasing way (to me).

 

[quincy]

I'm incredibly obsessive about these things.

I'll pause to let the incredibly obvious sink in.

I'll echo FrankToronto's sentiment: "As pulled" or not at all. Refractors with a peel? Peel stays on. Same for Pinnacle Mirrors, the Leaf Limited metal cards with the protective peel, Topps Pristine and eTopps cards, ITG Ultimate slabs - and now Superlative. It's an incredible pain in the *** to store them all, particularly to keep the cases in decent condition - basically, you're stuck putting it in another layer of plastic, ARGH! - and they're even tougher to display in your home.

I never said OCD was easy. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to recount the holes in the ceiling tiles and make sure that they're not multiplying in the night.

 

[The Fonz]

Im not a fan of the top loaders and stickers so i take all my keepers out and put em in magnetics. Look waaaay nicer to me this way. I break scratched bap/itg ultimate cases too. I appreciate each card more once theyre out of the cases and in a new shiny magnetic. I do understand the "as pulled" guys though

 

[Triple B]

I've made a pitch to try and talk the folks at ITG into using the magnetic snap cases with a seal over the top. Hopefully they decide to go this route in the future.

As for the loader, if the labels have broken on their own, then your own question has taken care of itself. If the seals are intact, I'm of the mind that they should stay that way.

 

[mclean_m]

The only thing I hate more than slabbed cards are "top-loadered" cards, so I break mine free from the top loaders. I don't understand why ITG feels the need to pre-package and seal their cards.

 

[timber09]

Personally I am with FrankTorono and Q on this one - I don't think I would ever purchrase a Superlative card that was not in its original sealed toploader, maybe for a huge discount but it would always be a little tainted in my eyes, and my PC Superlative cards shall never again be touched by the hands of man...well, not in the near future anyway.

...and Q - remember to wash your hands after you're done counting every tile, counting is such a dirty job.

 

[allstarcollectors]

.
I'll echo FrankToronto's sentiment: "As pulled" or not at all. Refractors with a peel? Peel stays on. Same for Pinnacle Mirrors, the Leaf Limited metal cards with the protective peel, Topps Pristine and eTopps cards, ITG Ultimate slabs - and now Superlative.

What about the Trilogy Frozen in Time? This may be the one exception. I keep them sealed for resale for the "as pulled" people, but the card looks terrible until peeled. Actually I noticed on eBay the unpeeled ones usually sell for more, because you can actually see the beautiful side of the card.

 

[jasonspezza19]

What about the Trilogy Frozen in Time? This may be the one exception. I keep them sealed for resale for the "as pulled" people, but the card looks terrible until peeled. Actually I noticed on eBay the unpeeled ones usually sell for more, because you can actually see the beautiful side of the card.

Well I haven't seen a Spezza FIT unpeeled. I'd gladly replace my "destroyed" one with an original .. Same thing for ITG Ultimate and imho quite obviously for ITG Superlative as they cost a lot of dough. If it's PC for lifetime it won't matter, but if you plan to sell it some day I know there's a lot of people that will pass on it.