Adventures in Slab Cracking

[Kutcher55]

Since I got back into the hobby a little over two years ago, one of my projects was to have pretty much all the good rookie cards from 1960 to 1990 in raw, ungraded form. I'm making progress but it hasn't been priority for me and I still need a few.

Anyways, up until this year, I had only cracked one slab in my entire life. It was an old label SGC 5 Thurman Munson rookie card. I got it done without harming the card and added it to my ungraded RC run. Then I went over a year without cracking another one. A few months ago I bought a PSA authentic Willie Stargell rookie card that looks like it should be a 6. I cracked it out and it measured fine. My theory is that the color is faded and that got it the A rating but I'm not certain about that. Either way it looks a heck of a lot better in my raw collection than it does in a PSA holder with the stupid A rating.

Lately, my slab cracking has become somewhat of a chronic habit due to my decision to build a raw Hank Aaron run. What I have found is that you can often find better deals on low grade slabs than you can on modest raw cards because raw card sellers tend to overrate the condition (and thus value) of the card. Plus, by buying slabs you reduce (not eliminate) the chances that the card has been altered. I bought a nice PSA 1 '57 Hank with great eye appeal and cracked that baby out. What a rush! Then I bought my first rogue slab, a 1964 Hank graded ISA 3.5. It was about as challenging as a PSA to crack out and I was glad to see the card measured fine and probably was at least a legit 3. Because it was in an odd holder eschewed by most collectors I ended up getting a good deal for what amounted to a roll of the dice. Recently I have upped the ante and purchased a '63 Aaron PSA 4. I can't wait to crack it. Slab cracking is highly addictive. It makes me feel like a bit of a rebel, I guess.

There are some good Youtube videos on slab cracking -- for me it's a simple formula. You take a pliers or a wire cutter and hold the slab down on a desk. Then you want to rip or tear open the upper corner of the slab away from the card itself. Before doing so you want to apply pressure with your hand or a book on the part of the slab that contains the card so that that part of the plastic doesn't flex when you are ripping open the corner. That will prevent creasing. Also, make sure to wear goggles or glasses to eliminate the risk of a small piece of plastic shrapnel embedding itself in your eyeball. Once you have cracked the corner, get yourself a flat head screwdriver and slide it in the void. Then, with great patience you want to start shimmying the screwdriver in between the two sheets of plastic that sandwich your soon-to-be-liberated card. Focus only on the outer edges. The slab will separate bit by bit. This takes a bit of skill and you have to make damn sure not to have the screwdriver slip and gouge your card. Eventually the slab will pop open and you can discard the mess in a brown paper bag. I have been saving the paper flips just so I have record of the original slab since I recognize I'm probably hurting resale by doing this. But I don't really care too much about that.

Please note, I have never tried this with a BVG slab. I have been told those are considerably tougher. If anyone has any advice in that regard, I have a McCovey and Palmer RC in BVG slabs that I'm afraid to mess with.