How to get Deathmate Orange preview without ruining it?

[Sharpcode]

I stumbled across this CGC 9.8 Deathmate Preview Orange on ebay. As far as I know this was only bound inside Previews magazine, so how on earth did they get it out so cleanly to get a 9.8? Any tips? Is it just a matter of heating the binding? I would think doing that would leave enough glue residue on the spine to hurt the grade.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275982055528

[magnus20009]

That is one of the copies that was not bound into Previews. I also have a 9.8 Orange. IIRC correctly someone from Valiant had a number of extra copies they printed that were not bound into previews and he was selling them off years ago. One individual bought a number of the nicer looking copies from him and had them graded which are why there are 26 of them graded in 9.8 now. See the massive spike in 2021 in the CGC census

http://cgcdata.com/cgc/search/title/:de ... us/231031/

[Sharpcode]

Ouch. That makes me think I'm stuck with the large Previews book I have just to have the Deathmate Orange. Wondering if I should get a 2nd just to try to release it with a heat gun and some waxed/parchment paper. Vertical centering on the one I have is pretty bad, and the Previews book as a whole is pretty yellow/brown (from age and probably poor paper quality I'm thinking).

[Chiclo]

There is a Defiant book bound in that issue of Previews too.