RE: Doin' dishes

Dear Batja, The quickest way to pack your plates is to use the foam pouches Ev is referring to in her e-mail. If you place each plate in a microfoam pouch, and stack them flat inside cartons, it effectively doubles the foam cushioning between each. The microfoam layers also grip together which limits slippage between layers and plates. ULINE 1-800 295 5510 Foam Pouches 12" x 12" S-11759. Also many other sizes are available. Also get 1/4" Microfoam, perforated every 12" for easy tear-off. S-775. These materials are thin ethafoams and are archival and inexpensive. wad up the 1/4" Microfoam to fill the bottom of your cartons for extra cushioning and to fill out the hollow spots. If the plates are 12" diameter, use a 14" carton. You don't want a carton that is too tight or one too large that will cause sloppy packing and use extra materials adding to your costs. You should be able to pack 10 to 12 plates in a 14" carton -- depending on the thickness of the plates. This is a comfortable amount of stacked plates without chancing damage. The most important thing (next to avoiding dropping a carton) is to limit any movement inside the cartons. Movement is what causes damage, so the contents should always be packed snugley. Best regards, Bryan Cooke

Uline makes custom-sized foamies ... and U-Haul has dishpaks ... but for softer non-abrasive slip-in packing ... i would consider using the bags that silver plates come in (i.e. Tiffany or Asprey) ...

however ... i am not sure if any of the above are archival ...

Director of Operations

Guarantee Wine Storage

Jersey City, NJ 07310

office: 800-330-9659

Hi all, and please excuse the cross-posting:

Our museum's acquired the archive of a former major porcelain manufacturer, and we are in the process of cataloguing and moving the collection to our building.

This includes some 1000+ of flat plates, and we need some way to pack them for local, one-way transport while keeping the number identification tags which are associated with them from becoming separated.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there any kind of archival-quality, non-abrasiove dish 'envelopes' or separators available commercially that can be used to contain and separate the plates so they can travel vertically, while accommodating the tags? I don't have the time or resources to create our own dividers from scratch.

Thank you for any advice or info,