Packing fossils

[Joe_17]

I was curious how you guys pack your fossils to ship or move. Whats better to put them  in to keep them safe and unbroken? Bubble wrap , peanuts?  I'll be moving soon and wanted to know whats best.  Thanks!

[JarrodB]

13 minutes ago, Joe_17 said:

I was curious how you guys pack your fossils to ship or move. Whats better to put them  in to keep them safe and unbroken? Bubble wrap , peanuts?  I'll be moving soon and wanted to know whats best.  Thanks!

I just moved my entire display room. I used a combination of free newspapers,  numerous cheap rolls of paper towels, tape, bubble wrap and boxes. I didn't break anything. 

[ynot]

It really depends on how fragile they are.

I do not like bubble wrap as it can lose its "cushion".

I do use news paper and paper towels for some of my less fragile pieces, and will use foam rubber for more delicate pieces.

[Joe_17]

Ok great! I'll have to give those a try. Never knew that about the bubble wrap.

[Bobby Rico]

Small fossil bubble wraped and placed in Tupperware . Heavy items bubble wrap and boxed separately in strong cardboard boxes . If I am packing a few items in box I may use cardboard to separate the bubble wrapped  fossils. . Buy lots of bubble wrap more than you need and lots of good strong cardboard boxes. Remember fossils don’t travel well if they not packed properly. They can be both heavy and fragile this is not a good combination. I moved home a few times and sent fossil worldwide and have had no breakages. I sometimes add a layer of bubble bottom and top of the box too All the best Bobby 

[Bobby Rico]

I not talking about one layer of bubble but really wrapping the fossil well. 

[DPS Ammonite]

I like to use the heavier sheets of dish packing foam that come in prescored rolls because they do not pop like bubble wrap does and can be used more than once. I also like the heavier grades of kraft paper grocery bags. I like to reuse my wrapping for storage. Newspaper might be good for one move but is not the best for long term storage. Kraft paper bags are better.

 

Make sure that that you have sturdier/thicker containers if you have heavier items in them and/or if you plan to stack them high. In other words, make sure that your boxes on the bottom of the pile are strong enough to support the weight of the boxes above them. Do a test stack of fully loaded containers to make sure that especially the bottom container will survive. 

 

I also like to use the Rubbermaid type plastic tubs with handles. Make sure that you do not get a larger size than necessary. Large tubs full of rocks can be too heavy to carry.

 

Always pack containers full so that especially in thinner containers, they can push out and resist crushing. Pack lighter and more fragile rocks in smaller strong containers if they are going to be packed with larger and heavier rocks. You do not want the larger and heavier ones to crush to smaller more fragile ones if the loads shift or the boxes end up upside down.

 

Packing and loading is made easier if you have many containers of the same size. I like to order boxes from Uline. If I plan to reuse the boxes for storage I like the thicker banker type boxes with double and triple sides. Rubbermaid type plastic containers are also good as durable long term storage containers.

 

If you are having someone else move the boxes, always assume that they will put your weakest boxes and boxes with the most fragile fossils on the bottom of the stack. Don’t assume that they will read the fragile or do not stack stickers on them. So, select and pack your boxes accordingly. Better yet, move the more fragile stuff yourself.

[Joe_17]

Thanks everyone!

[Bresk1]

I use a packing foam like Plastazote to transport anything delicate. It's good for impact and is easy enough to work with.

[Troodon]

I found that midsize same size plastic containers, lots of them, worked  the best when I moved to the west coast from the east.  You dont want to put to much on top of one another why the midsize.   I used small bubble wrap , paper towels on most and if delicate I would put it in a box which went in the container.  A bottom layer of tiny bubble wrap went into every container.    I had lots and lots of rikers with shark teeth and found using one layer of bubble wrap between the glass and teeth worked fine and would stack them in a box.  Paper towel are great and provide good cushioning.  I also had larger fossils and built crates to house them.

 

I  personally moved my collection would not let anyone who is clueless about fossils touch them and would recommend the same.  Avoid using large bubble wrap, peanuts or hard packing material.   I rented a U haul trailer and transported everything that way.

[Bob Saunders]

news paper is acidic type and if a white object the news print can rub off onto it. it also deteriorates. when we did antique shows we often used the blue adult diapers for expensive glass objects. 

[hadrosauridae]

Lots of excellent advice so far!  I would add to just mentally prepare yourself for some breaks and expect to glue a few things back together.   The fossils can be wrapped and protected as much as possible, but it still has to survive the bouncing and vibrations of being transported.

[FossilNerd]

When I moved, I used a combination of things that have already been mentioned. However, I did want to suggest to pack the boxes so that nothing moves around very easily. I used old grocery bags and news paper for this. I put enough between the fossils as to not allow them to bounce around. Bubble wrap, foam, and the like is good for protecting, but if things are sliding around in the box and banging into each other, you are bound to have breakage.

[Joe_17]

10 hours ago, Troodon said:

I found that midsize same size plastic containers, lots of them, worked  the best when I moved to the west coast from the east.  You dont want to put to much on top of one another why the midsize.   I used small bubble wrap , paper towels on most and if delicate I would put it in a box which went in the container.  A bottom layer of tiny bubble wrap went into every container.    I had lots and lots of rikers with shark teeth and found using one layer of bubble wrap between the glass and teeth worked fine and would stack them in a box.  Paper towel are great and provide good cushioning.  I also had larger fossils and built crates to house them.

 

I  personally moved my collection would not let anyone who is clueless about fossils touch them and would recommend the same.  Avoid using large bubble wrap, peanuts or hard packing material.   I rented a U haul trailer and transported everything that way.

Moved last year, thanks for the advice though lol. I ended up packing my own fossils and carrying with me in the car i was in , Like you suggested . I didn't want them to be with someone who was clueless on how to handle them.

[Troodon]

53 minutes ago, Joe_17 said:

Moved last year, thanks for the advice though lol. I ended up packing my own fossils and carrying with me in the car i was in , Like you suggested . I didn't want them to be with someone who was clueless on how to handle them.

Great, they just have to drop or shake a box and who knows even the best packing job won't help.

[Benny]

I use bubble wrap and place inside a container lined with closed cell packing foam.

[siteseer]

On 3/27/2019 at 12:28 PM, ynot said:

It really depends on how fragile they are.

I do not like bubble wrap as it can lose its "cushion".

I do use news paper and paper towels for some of my less fragile pieces, and will use foam rubber for more delicate pieces.

 

Hi Tony,

 

Yes, for multiple somewhat heavy specimens like whale vertebrae or solid matrix pieces, you want a large enough box that is not too difficult to get your arms around.  In fact, you might get yourself several fileboxes at your UPS store (or wherever you can get them cheaper).  It's an easier move when as many boxes as possible are the same size.  Also, there's always a use for fileboxes after you unpack and get moved in because they have lids.  I cover the bottom of the box with wadded-up newspaper (preferably a bunch of those local free newspapers that I save for this purpose along with any other newspaper I might still have) to create a good first level of cushion and then add a few more.  Each page shouldn't be tightly-wadded.  Then, I wrap each vertebra or chunk around the middle and covering the bottom in a long page of newspaper that has been crinkled up lengthwise.  You want the surface to have at least a couple of layers of newspaper that way and I place each wrapped piece on the layer of newspaper.  You can put another wadded-up piece of newspaper to fill each space between specimens and then put a layer of bubble wrap or foam over that and pack smaller stuff on top.

 

There used to be a great local UPS shipper that sold odd-color, irregular pieces of foam cheap and I used to buy sheets and pieces of that for custom packing of larger pieces or for setting a specimen into a thick piece of cut-out foam.  I'd do that for flat matrix plates like Green River fish.

 

Jess

[siteseer]

A lot of my stuff is in old-school soda flats or those flats you get at mineral shows (Denver box-type stuff).  Some flats are heavier than others.  When I'm going to move, I check the flats and add some cushion, reusing foam mailers that have been sent to me or leftover sheets of foam and/or bubblewrap.  A lot of the specimens inside have gone through a few moves in the past twenty years and are packed well already but you want to protect long, fragile things like toe bones or jaw sections or a baculite so it's good to check on all your specimens beforehand in case any need special packing.

[erose]

Just to add my two cents...

 

Use what are called "book" boxes and nothing bigger if you can help it. They are medium sized boxes so even when packed full with books they never get that heavy. 

[jdp]

For big and fragile pieces, one thing to think about is using firm planks of foam (like ethafoam) cut to fit snugly within the box and then cutting out a space in the foam that fits the fossil precisely. Ideally the fossil will be surrounded on all sides by ethafoam with no space to move around. You want the total size of the ethafoam to be about twice the size of the fossil in all directions. For particularly fragile and valuable pieces, you might want to consider a pelican case such as those used to ship expensive and fragile camera equipment.