Best way to open MOC?

[Palifan]

Hi all,

Before you flame me I'm not asking this question about opening Star Wars MOC or anything vintage for that matter but for some retro style Alien figures I have.

I've got a set of Alien figures that I'd like to display loose and although I've spent years trying to find the best ways of resealing old figures I wondered if anyone has any experience with opening figures so that the card back is preserved in the best way? I know it's always a bit hit or miss with opening things up but it would be good to hear of any tricks anyone might have with a good success rate.

Mod's please feel free to move this if it's not in the best section for this type of question.

Ian

 

[Joe]

I've heard of people freezing carded figures from certain lines, might have been GI Joe or something. Apparently the bubbles would pop right off but I'm not sure how long you'd have to freeze them or how soon after getting them out is the ideal time to take the bubble off..

Knife is your best bet - slice the bubble and pull the figure out. That way you don't have to worry about matching up the card with the bubble if you ever wanted to put them back together.

 

[Palifan]

Never heard of freezing them, interesting one.

As I've been putting together a resealed collection over the years it's normally the sliced bubble ones that are the least satisfactory as the bubble often doesn't fit back together quite right and can't be glued. Also with the freezing method it's really hard to put the bubble back on cleanly if there's no paper left still attached to the back of it.

I'll have to give it some thought as pulling the bubble off can cause paper damage and slicing the bubble might not quite work for me although saying that the 12 back Obi Wan has the the bubble sliced at the top and about half way down each side. This one does go back together nicely so maybe it's a possibility.

 

[shawn_k]

It's up to you, but honestly with them being the cheapest right while being produced still, I'd just pick up another set of them. That's what I opted to do when they made the SDCC sets the different blue cardbacks since I couldn't bring myself to open those.

 

[Palifan]

It's up to you, but honestly with them being the cheapest right while being produced still, I'd just pick up another set of them. That's what I opted to do when they made the SDCC sets the different blue cardbacks since I couldn't bring myself to open those.

That's exactly what I've done :lol: I've got a couple of blue sets which will remain sealed and even though I've picked up the black ones to open I do like the look of the card backs this way also so thought I'd try to keep them nice.

As a side note I also picked up the blue egg chamber set and ordered the black box version from Super 7. The blue boxed version has only 250 made but I'm wondering how many of the black ones will be made as the offer for these only lasted the length of SDCC weekend. It's a fun line which deserves to be displayed loose.

 

[shawn_k]

That's exactly what I've done :lol: I've got a couple of blue sets which will remain sealed and even though I've picked up the black ones to open I do like the look of the card backs this way also so thought I'd try to keep them nice.

As a side note I also picked up the blue egg chamber set and ordered the black box version from Super 7. The blue boxed version has only 250 made but I'm wondering how many of the black ones will be made as the offer for these only lasted the length of SDCC weekend. It's a fun line which deserves to be displayed loose.

Definitely agree. I'm working on a section in my display room for these and also ordered the black box egg chamber set. They're just too much fun.

 

[x-pack]

I bought some cards that had cut bubbles a while back. Done carefully you can't tell from a distance. Cutting the bubble definitely seems less noticeable than pulling the bubble off, no matter how carefully you do it. I would only do that with new **** though.

 

[Palifan]

Well I ended up opening the bubbles along the outside edge and managed to do it fairly cleanly

I'm not sure I'll ever put them back in their card backs but at least they're not to messy if I do want to. It's funny I never would have thought twice about opening new items a few years ago but this whole vintage collecting makes you think twice. I'm not sure that's a great thing as thing it seems a shame to keep things sealed for ever and I've always liked to have loose examples that I can set up in more interesting ways. There's also something to be said for actually handling these things and for some reason I always think the colours look better in hand.

Anyway, it's nice to have a loose set and makes them way easier to display.

Thanks for all your tips though - Ian