After attending a fair in Liverpool I was told by a dealer that an incentive card out of its gold seal toploader is worth 25% less??

Is this true??

Well by 'gold sealed top loader' I assume you mean the ones sealed by 'Razor Ink'?

This means that the card inside was never circulated within boxes by the manufacturer (Usually Inkworks?).

Razor Ink bought up Inkworks remaining stock when they went out of business.

I've bought gold sealed top loaders before and opened them up to put the card in my personal collection.

To be honest it's a matter of personal preference ie is the card so rare people won't care if it's had X number of handlers/owners or is it a 'big deal' the card went straight from manufacturer to sealed top loader and never into a sealed pack.

Saying it lost '25%' of value I think is circumstantial - Like if you believe paying out to have a card 'Graded' really gives it more value than the same card that's ungraded.

Mostly it's about rarity, condition and how much people are will to pay out for it rather than talking 'book prices' - Which is probably the '25%' talk.

Should have asked the deader '25% less in comparsion to what price?'.

Sorry for the long ramble - Hope it's of some help?

Ps. Which card/set/year was it?

It was a William Shatner six million dollar man multi case incentive by Rittenhouse archives signed in black..

He did say he's never even seen one before???but if he had one he would charge no more than £100!!

It's only true if the dealer is trying to buy the card off you.

I always take my cards out of the gold seal top loader from Rittenhouse. I never understood why others don't do that because the card is held in the top loader without a card sleeve. A top loader is not archival safe, they're made from PVC. I always put my cards in card sleeve first, there made of polypropylene (yeah I admit I had to look it up) and are acid free. So bottom line is you keep them sealed in the long run damage will occur. If that means cutting the cards value with 25% so be it. I buy cards to keep them in my my collection not to resell them a couple of months later.

I think it's strange that no one else has a problem with this since this board is full of collectors who are very uptight about storage. I know I am :-)

I personally don't care whether the card is in the sealed top loader or not. I generally take mine out of them. This is for Rittenhouse case incentives or Ink Vault cards.

quote:

Originally posted by MvG:
I always take my cards out of the gold seal top loader from Rittenhouse. I never understood why others don't do that because the card is held in the top loader without a card sleeve. A top loader is not archival safe, they're made from PVC. I always put my cards in card sleeve first, there made of polypropylene (yeah I admit I had to look it up) and are acid free. So bottom line is you keep them sealed in the long run damage will occur. If that means cutting the cards value with 25% so be it. I buy cards to keep them in my my collection not to resell them a couple of months later.

I think it's strange that no one else has a problem with this since this board is full of collectors who are very uptight about storage. I know I am :-)

That's a fantastic point.I seem to remember the same with polybagged comics a few years ago?dealers in the U.K.are very poor with collectors in gerneral!its very hard to get anywhere with them?end of the day the card is worth well more than his value of £100 anyway?I was thinking nearer £200.they hardly ever come up for sale?I think he was just trying it on.

I think even someone from Rittenhouse has said that the sealed toploaders were meant to be temporary. If you know you're going to be reselling it then it's probably best to leave it in because some collectors do prefer it. Otherwise I don't worry about it.

I wrote to Rittenhouse in 2009 about the sealed toploaders. Steve responded that I shouldn't have any problem storing the card for a long period of time, that he'd never heard of a problem with toploaders, and that all of the top dealers use toploaders to store their cards.

Well, yes, toploaders are a good way to store cards, but even Ultra Pro says you have to use a sleeve. My guess is that it costs too much in supplies and labor to add the extra step of putting incentives in sleeves first. I ended up carefully slitting open the seal, putting the card in a sleeve, then putting back in its original toploader. I'd much rather be safe than sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by Chrisahend:
I think even someone from Rittenhouse has said that the sealed toploaders were meant to be temporary. If you know you're going to be reselling it then it's probably best to leave it in because some collectors do prefer it. Otherwise I don't worry about it.

Exactly right. Only people who are expecting to recoup some money from turning over incentives or selling other cards in sealed top loaders, should care about keeping the seal intact. Collectors should slice them open and store in whatever manner they are keeping their other cards.

Recent RA autograph cards are watermarked and the older ones can still be easily authenticated. Inkwork's autograph cards are no more valuable if you got them with a Razor seal than if you got them out of an Inkworks box.

If there is no premium for having a seal, how can there be a discount for not having one?

sorry if this is OT, but are those 9 card pages from Ultra pro ok for storage of better cards, or should they be going in the individual sleeves then into the pages (im not up on the terminology either).

Newer case incentives from Rittenhouse have been placed in a penny sleeve before being placed in the toploader.

For instance the Eureka auotograph expansion set 3-set and 5-set cards, as well as the 2 Game Of Thrones multi-case incentive cards. So now you can keep them both 'archival safe' and in the gold seal toploader.

otim

quote:

Originally posted by simpsonscardman:
Dealers in the U.K.are very poor with collectors in gerneral!its very hard to get anywhere with them?end of the day the card is worth well more than his value of £100 anyway?I was thinking nearer £200.they hardly ever come up for sale?I think he was just trying it on.

To be fair, you will get similar offers from any dealer whether he's UK based or overseas. Dealers buy cards to resell at a profit, so they are never going to offer you the 'full' value as that would leave them no room for making a profit when they resell it. If you want the best price, you have to sell it direct to a private collector...but even they will want to pay as little as possible these days

I always unseal cards if they're for my personal collection, partly because of the archival issue but also because the seal covers so much of the card. If, however, I intend to trade/sell them (such as a bunch of Razor Ink I have), I leave them sealed so the next person can decide what to do with their cards and also for authenticity.

The only card I EVER took out of the seal was a Razor Inkvault I bought for one of the Angel autographs. It was very inexpensive and I wanted to put it in the binder page. Otherwise I NEVER take the cards out of the sealed toploaders. But that's just me.

quote:

Originally posted by simpsonscardman:
It was a William Shatner six million dollar man multi case incentive by Rittenhouse archives signed in black..

He did say he's never even seen one before???but if he had one he would charge no more than £100!!

I guess that's a bit different - Didn't know Rittenhouse have gold seals too. Hope you keep it safe

quote:

Originally posted by TC00:

quote:

Originally posted by simpsonscardman:
It was a William Shatner six million dollar man multi case incentive by Rittenhouse archives signed in black..

He did say he's never even seen one before???but if he had one he would charge no more than £100!!

I guess that's a bit different - Didn't know Rittenhouse have gold seals too. Hope you keep it safe

The Shatner auto card or the toploader??

In the case of the Nimoy auto that you got through his Etsy store, if you had the connection at Rittenhouse to have one put in a toploader with their gold seal on it, you got ALOT more than people selling without.

I always open the seal and place the card in a penny sleeve.

quote:

Originally posted by HIM:
In the case of the Nimoy auto that you got through his Etsy store, if you had the connection at Rittenhouse to have one put in a toploader with their gold seal on it, you got ALOT more than people selling without.

Huh?

Are you talking about the autograph card sold with the Tee shirts via the Twitter notice? I don't think there was a seal, and if one was somehow put on, I don't see how that makes it worth any more. It was a special RA design that came signed directly from Nimoy and made a tidy profit on the secondary market.

If there's a story about shady seals, I'm game.