Packing Your Doll and Other Fragile Items for Shipping
- Take care in packing your doll by wrapping each item with large bubble wrap, making sure (if it has been used) that the bubbles have not already been popped. Very fragile items should be packed in an inner box. Do not set items flat one on top of the other. Make sure that everything is well cushioned with styrofoam, bubble wrap or peanuts.
- Newspaper add more weight than styro-foam and causes shipping to cost more. I have had more damaged where shippers used newspapers as packing your doll than anything else because they compact tighter providing less cushion. Do not send doll in original box or anything that you want back. Storage is a real issue and it is seldom that the doll is returned in the same box in which it arrived. In addition, I have often gotten dolls wrapped in towels. Again, storage is an issue, so keeping track of these items is a burden.
- The UPS wants a minimum of 4 inches of styro-foam used as packing between the two boxes if shipping fragile items. . FedEx follows the same guidelines as the above.
- Please note that I have received items that I can’t believe arrived undamaged as they were so badly packed, and I have also received perfectly packed items where the box was damaged, but because the packing was excellent, the items came through unscathed. I have never sent or received a package to or from another country with USPS has damaged or lost. All my packages that I have received from FedEx and UPS have been delivered without damage. I seldom ship with Fed. Ex. because I do not ship often enough to have an account that warrants merchant discounts. The customers who prefer Fed. Ex usually send their own Fed. Ex label and I have to take the package to town for shipment. I do ship UPS as they regularly deliver to Antique Child.
PACKING YOUR DOLL HEADS
- Bisque doll heads are made of porcelain, just like dishes. The eyes are held in the head via a mechanism like the letter T, with the eyeballs (that are blown glass) at the end of the T and a counterweight at the bottom of the T to allow the eyes to open and close. The eyes are held in with dabs of plaster at the temples. In transit the movement often loosens the pieces of plaster, causing the eyes to fall from placement and break. The top of the head of most bisque dolls is open, with the top of the head covered with a cardboard cap and then the hair. Often the cap has never been removed so the glue that holds it dries and is brittle with age so can easily be removed by placing a fingernail between the bisque and the cap to pop it loose. The head then needs to be stuffed with tissue, NOT tightly, but enough to keep the eye mechanism from moving. If you are unable to remove tie cap, you may utilize a bit of water at the joint to soften the glue. If the eyes are already broken and an eye hole is available, cotton balls can be carefully put through the eye to fill the head so what is rattling around inside does not move in transit. Another trick to stuffing the head is that if you are unable to remove the cap, is that the body of the doll is held together with stringing. SIT ON A CARPETED FLOOR FOR THIS. Pull a leg and at the knee you will see the stringing. Cut it and the body will fall apart. There is a button at the base neck. Turn the head so that the button falls into the head and stuff the head through that hole. Take all the pieces of the body and put them in a bag and send them with the doll.
- After the head has been stuffed, wrap with bubble wrap. Composition dolls do not need the head stuffed. China dolls need the head wrapped with bubble wrap. Wrap the arms, and especially the hands with bubble wrap as well as the legs. The rule of thumb is to bubble wrap anything that is of a glass nature and considered breakable.
- For the bisque head doll, when your doll is sent back to you, the cap will be loose from the head with stuffing. The eyes will not blink until the stuffing is removed. You will have to put a small bead of Elmers glue around the rim of the head to reglue it. Try to keep the glue off the head.