Postage and Packing for Thundereggs

I was prompted to make this page after losing more than a couple of fine stones in the post - and trust me, there are few feelings more horrible than opening a box, picking up a packet containing a thunderegg and feeling the shattered pieces grate against each other - realization dawning. So here below is what i have learned about how to post stones in the safest possible way. Of course - nothing can guarantee that the postal service is completely unable to smash it in spite of its best efforts - but some ways are definitely safer than others and i think that the approaches below will help a lot to achieve that.

01 - NEVER use newspaper to wrap stones!!!

Wrapping a stone in newspaper is all too common. But i have noticed that stones wrapped in newspaper are much more likely to get shattered than those wrapped in Bubble Wrap. Especially if you also make mistake no. 2 below! To the extent that, when i buy stones on ebay, if the box arrives and i see stones wrapped in newspaper, my heart sinks. Newspaper just isn't very soft. And any blow to the box gets transmitted directly in to the thunderegg, leading to that dreadful crack sound. Or, if you are more lucky, you open it and get shower of grit and chips that has been dislodged or grated off it. Honestly - bubble wrap is cheap enough so there is no real excuse not to use it. Also, it is easy to recycle. Any bubble wrap that you get in parcels can be kept in a sack somewhere and just used again. In addition, those padded envelopes that are not really much good for anything except posting dvds, you can keep them, open them up, cut them into strips and use them to wrap round the stones.

Screwed up newspaper can then be used to fill the spaces in the box and pad it. Or wadded up old plastic bags or foam or any other soft material. Heh - i once sent out a box padded with some old clothes (clean) that i had earmarked for the rubbish bin! I was de

02 - Pack boxes with attention to the floor

The next most common mistake I have seen is to place the biggest stones on the bottom of the box, then place the smaller stones on top of them, then fill up the remaining space with padding. Bad move! If someone is going to drop the box or slam it down then it is the bottom that gets the impact. And, if the stones are wrapped in newspaper then bye bye whatever stone is on the bottom (bubble wrap would be more likely to survive it, though dont quote me on that!!)! Instead, you should reverse those layers completely. Start the box with a good layer of padding on the floor (screwed up newspaper or whatever you are using), then add the TOUGHEST stones (not the largest - large ones are often the more fragile) in the next layer wrapped in bubble wrap. The most fragile stones should go in the centre, regardless of their size. In my experience, breakages don't come from a heavy stone on top of a smaller one (unless of course you have a 10 inch monster in there!), they come when a fragile stone is too near the edge and not padded enough. As you fill it, add more layers of screwed up newspaper strips surrounding them - between the stones and the box - so that the stones are sitting in a nice nest of padding. Then fill in whatever space is left at the top in the same way. Pack it tightly. The less the stones can move, the better. If the stones come almost to the top of the box, that is much better than coming almost to the bottom.

Any REALLY fragile specimens can be packed securely inside a small box that is then put inside the larger one with the rest of them. Once again, anything goes here so long as it is safe. I once ended up with a range of japanese capsule figures (dont ask!) and the egg-shaped plastic containers they came in were perfect for packing small specimens. The fact that they are round makes them all but indestructible unless the whole box is completely flattened.

Incidentally, a friend of mine came up with a novel way of packing a boxful of rough Obsidian. The stones were wrapped in plastic and then he shot the whole box full of expanding foam insulation, which hardened into a solid foam brick (it helps that he's in the construction industry!). THAT box got through without any damage, though by all accounts it completely confused the customs officials, who held it for about 8 weeks trying to work out what it was!

03 - Don't pack two stones in the same bundle of bubble wrap without something in between them.

I have often seen stones packed half to half, face to face, then the pair wrapped up together. This is fine and saves space, but ONLY if there is a layer of material between the two faces. The reason being that if there is stone against stone anywhere in the box, they can move against each other, which can lead to scratches, grating or even broken stones.

Essentially - pack the stones assuming that a 13st man will be doing a clog dance on the box at some point and that the plane simply tosses them out onto the runway in your home country without actually bothering to land. I have no idea what the postal services actually do - but the results seem to suggest the above.

Locations:

USA - Mexico - France - Germany - Poland - Romania - Australia