Just wanted to say my bit here as they were my cards in that photo.
I collected hundreds of cardbacks and battered bubble MOC figures way before AFA and U grading existed. I cannot remember exactly where these came from but they were not u-graded. I don't U-grade and don't collect AFA either. Did I remove figures from cracked / smashed bubbles?? yes I did, but they went straight into my loose collection and bubble remainders were stripped with a scalpel and put into my collection. If I could save a bubble I would, and I have also sold many of these down the years to help people with their collection. Ive opened up a Trilogo Amanaman in 2003 to finish my loose collection, but I did NOT use a mint card - am I wrong in doing that? It was battered and had a cracked bubble BUT still cost less than a mint loose version. I even bought a Romba and Warok on POTF cards because they were cheaper MOC that loose. When I was getting more income through my job in the late 90's early 00's I spent a lot more buying job lots up and the start of Ebay was heaven for this. I even remember buying carded figures from QXL back then aswell (QXL were a similar site to Ebay but didn't really take off in the same way) and often hunted down job lots. I also bought cardbacks like these in the past as I was also a cardback collector specifically for a period.
So just so you know, these were from my collection. There are hundreds of cardback collectors and I was no different to any of them. I never pulled one of the card for u-grading or anything like it. People collected cardbacks from the day these things were released. Ive seen guys who found bundles from their childhoods in their lofts and still to this day you will find genuine cards that survived this way.
So again, I bought these cards a long time ago - and drip feed them from my collection. Am I going to explain myself for selling them anymore?? No. There is no proof whatsoever that cards in this condition were not kept in this state since the figure was removed. Many people both here and elsewhere have excellent collections of cut bubble carded figures - and it just shows there were people in the early days who were fond of the packaging as we are.
Im distancing myself from the hobby now as it is no longer enjoyable to me and other things come first. Im really saddened at how things are going and that there are now set rules in the hobby, that you have to stick by otherwise you are accused of god knows what. Ive been around long enough and have seen enough to know whats what, and it is really sad what is happening. Im being judged on what I USED to collect , even though people have no proof.
Ive really enjoyed my time as a collector, but its times like this I wish the internet had never been invented. Facebook IS killing this hobby, and is doing more damage than AFA ever will or has done previously. People are being priced out of the market, and its becoming a competition of who has the biggest wallet and I find that very, very sad. Yes, seeing carded figures U graded is sad, but there is nothing anyone can do about it, and the damage has already been done. Some people will pay more for a mint loose AFA U graded figure than a MOC of the same figure, we see how crazy that is but its something out of out control now. This isn't an attempt to derail this thread into a FB slagging match as the thread itself is a very important subject, but we have to realise that it cannot be stopped.
The internet was made by man, the internet brought AFA to the masses. If only we could have stayed in the non digital age, it was a much better and friendlier place to be. Honestly, I think about this at least once a week and it does hurt. I grew up with Star Wars, but many more are now joining the hunt and it is a business - no more,no less.
Lee