Advice for damaged packaging. . .

[Hexigore]

I am curious to hear what people think on this matter. If you found a piece for your collection, but it was on a well-worn, or damaged card. . .would you remove it from the packaging in order to display it? I ran across a piece on Ebay that I am interested in, but the card is creased, rolled, and slightly torn, the bubble looks dented and shows signs of being compressed. The figure looks like it is in mint condition though. Just wondering what people might do in this situation. Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Nostalgiabuff]

it all depends on the collector, it is your money to spend so if you just want a mint unplayed with figure then open it. you could also attempt to somewhat restore the card if that works better for you. I have purchased some carded beaters and then flattened them as best I could and resealed the bubble where it was coming loose

[SKotK]

It's a judgment call, of course, but the first thing I encountered like this was a die-cast TIE Fighter that was literally about to fall off the card. I probably could have tried to glue the bubble down to secure it, but at that point it's modified anyway and not an originally sealed card...and I don't like to perpetrate that kind of thing. So I removed it from the bubble to prevent any damage from it falling off unexpectedly, which worked for me because it's nearly impossible to find those things in mint or near-mint loose condition. So I guess if the item is in danger of coming off the card anyway, it's an easy decision for me.

When it comes to Mego, I had to wrestle with that recently when I was filling in the last of my Star Trek figures, which I was trying to find in as close to mint condition as possible on cards with damaged bubbles. Occasionally an item would come up on eBay sealed on card for *cheaper* than the loose/damaged card version was going for! So I had to decide: do I buy the sealed item for cheaper and then break the seal so I can have my nice loose figure? In the end, I couldn't do it - I can't stand the idea of spoiling a MOC item unnecessarily, even if it saves me money. So I just had to be patient and wait for one to come up with a broken or cut bubble, which eventually happened. All except The Romulan, at least.

Of course, I've got a dilemma now with one of my figures: my Talosian is on a card with a bubble that's slightly lifted/cracked at the bottom, but not that bad. I really want to just break the bubble enough to pull the figure out, but so far I haven't done it. I'm still struggling with that one.

--SKot