Packing Carousel Figures

Carousel figures often require a bit more careful packing than other kinds of porcelain figures.  The main reason is that other kinds of figures rarely have a hard metal rod running through the figure which can be exposed to stress on either end.  Below you will find some tried-and-true packing suggestions that will help you pack your carousel for survivability.  Insurance claims aren't fun for buyers or sellers, it's worth it to take a little extra time to make sure you don't have to fill one out.

Where do I start?

If the horse comes in its original box (with the shaped styrofoam inserts), then that's about the best packing there is already.  There's no need to do more than pop it into its original box, and then put that box into another (sturdier) box for shipment (making sure there's something to cushion the inner box, like packing peanuts, shredded paper, etc).

If the original packing material/box isn't available, then the best place to start is by disassembling the figure - provided it can be disassembled.  The ones that normally can't be taken apart are the Franklin Mint carousels, Lenox carousels, and many of the Hamilton Collection carousels. PJ's can be removed from the pole for shipment (unscrew the finial and lift the horse off), but they're usually all right left assembled as long as they're packed well.

Most of the other figures (Westland, Lefton, Precious Art, Impulse Giftware, and Willitts except for the Dezendorf carousels) do come apart. There are two good reasons for doing this - first it makes it easier to pack, and second it keeps any stress on the pole from being felt on the horse. Most of the horses are hollow, and stress on the pole during shipment will usually crack or break the figure.  However, many of these figures have aging rubber spacers between the pole and figure (top and bottom), and they may disintegrate when you take it apart.  If it looks like they might fall apart if removed, ask your buyer first (they may have replacements available at their end already) or just don't disassemble it.

So how do you disassemble one? Starting with a fully assembled horse:

Take hold of the upper pole section (the part sticking out of the horse's back) and unscrew it. Hold onto the horse while you're doing this, because sometimes they unscrew from the bottom section first instead of the top. Be gentle, but also don't be afraid to apply firm, steady pressure (just don't use brute force). Also make sure you're unscrewing rather than tightening (remember, righty-tighty, lefty-loosey). If it's not budging with firm steady pressure, then it's probably best to leave it alone and not disassemble it.

The pole on a large carousel horse such as this one is usually in three pieces, as shown below (horse removed and pole reassembled). The ball on the top unscrews also, but it's not necessary to take that part off.

The poles on smaller carousels are also usually in three pieces, except that the middle piece will be threaded rather than being a threaded 'sleeve' as this one is. Once you've gotten it apart, you should have pieces that look like this:

You can stop the disassembly at this point, or you can attempt to remove the last section as well. (NOTE: On most of the smaller carousels, this last piece is not removable - especially if the carousel is one that is designed to move up and down with a music-box.) Removing this piece isn't essential most of the time, but it does make for easier packing. If you do remove it, then you'll have these pieces:

Once you've gotten it apart, you can take the pole pieces and put them in a ziplock bag so they don't get lost. Wrap up the bag (so that the sharp edges of the brass rounded washers don't gouge the base or horse) and the base (so that it doesn't get scratched). If the rubber spacers on the brass pole disintegrate when you disassemble it, replacements can be obtained at most hardware stores.

Packing

Now for the horse itself. The most important thing when wrapping up a figure like this is to FILL THE VOIDS. Empty spaces (voids) are where damage is most likely to occur. Even if a figure is wrapped up well, if there is nothing between its legs and the package is subjected to a large shock (like being dropped), the legs will flex inside the wrapping. Porcelain and resin (which most carousel figures are made of) don't 'flex' well at all - they break instead.

So fill the empty spaces up with something before you wrap it, even if you didn't (or couldn't) remove the horse from the pole first. You can use most any packing material for this - bubble wrap, foam rubber, wadded-up tissue paper, styrofoam cut to fit, etc. Do NOT use newspaper - because most of these figures are unglazed porcelain. If you have newspaper in direct contact with the figure, the newsprint will rub off onto the figure - and because there is no glazing, the newsprint (ink) will be almost impossible to remove. Also do not use material that 'gives' a lot - like cotton balls/batting, cloth, plastic sacks, toilet paper, etc. If the material is easy to compress, it won't protect the legs from flexing at all. Below is a picture using bubble wrap to fill up the empty space between the legs:

Wrapping the item:

I would suggest bubble wrap, period. For an item the size of this one (the whole figure is 13" from base to pole-top), I'd further suggest the large-bubble bubble wrap. The smaller-bubble stuff just isn't going to protect it well enough (as an overall wrapping, it's fine for filling the smaller void spaces) unless you use yards and yards of it. The only other 'safe' alternative is to sandwich it between two thick (for a figure this size, at least 2" thick) pieces of spongy foam so that it's fully covered. If you use foam make sure it covers the whole horse, with at least an inch of overhang on the back, front, top, and bottom. Also make sure you tape the foam pieces together in at least two places from top-to-bottom and two places side-to-side, so the figure doesn't have a chance to work its way out from between them during shipment. I've already mentioned why newspaper isn't a good wrapping material, and tissue paper as an overall wrapping wouldn't be near as much protection as bubble wrap. Those new airbags (where you put the figure inside and then inflate the bag) are good too, but they're also pretty expensive.

Does it have to be wrapped? I'd say, yes it does. I would not suggest putting the figure into the box with no wrapping, and just trusting to the peanuts/shredded paper to protect it - because they usually won't. For one thing, if you've taken it apart or there is more than one figure in the box, you have something else in this box that it could come into violent contact with during shipment. For another, the item is probably going to settle towards the bottom of the box during shipment because it's a lot heavier than the peanuts or paper are. If it does, then it's only got a thin layer of cardboard between it and any hard surfaces it comes into contact with.  Shipping companies are not known for gently setting down packages, they are often thrown around and set down hard during shipment.  Marking them "Fragile" normally doesn't make any difference, the sorters along the way rarely stop to read each box before throwing it into the sorting bin or onto a truck.

Another good idea is to double-box the figure - wrap it up, put it into a box and then put that box inside another box for shipment. If you've disassembled the carousel, put only the horse in the inner box, and the base and poles in the outer - that way they're better protected from one another. Double-boxing isn't essential (if you've wrapped it well enough, that is), but it does increase the survivability of the carousel.

Last but not least - plastic sacks are not good packing material! I can just about guarantee that using them will void the insurance on the package.

Okay - I've wrapped it in bubble wrap. This should be good enough, right?

No - not if it looks like this picture, it isn't. There is not nearly enough cushion there for the item to withstand any rough handling. The use of the small-bubble bubble wrap, and the fact that you can still see the horse so clearly, means that it isn't protected well at all. If you can still easily feel the outlines of the horse when it's wrapped, then it probably isn't wrapped well enough. My own general rule of thumb (and I've never had one that I sold get broken in shipment) is that if I feel like I could drop the wrapped-up horse (unboxed) from 4-5 feet off the ground and it wouldn't break, then it's wrapped well enough. (Not that I suggest anyone actually put that to the test, mind - you should be able to eyeball it and have a good idea whether it would withstand that kind of impact or not.)

Another thing that some well-meaning people miss is good coverage to the front and back parts of the figure. They'll wrap it around the middle extremely well, but not front-to-back - and that leaves the front and back susceptible to damage. On this horse especially, the front and back need good coverage - because of the curled-over forelock and long tail.  So just make sure that you can't easily feel the edges/outline of the figure - from the front, sides, top, bottom, or back after it's wrapped. That way it will be much less likely to get broken.

A side note about tape - resist the impulse to drown the bubble wrap in layer upon layer of packing tape. It doesn't add any more protection, and it makes getting the figure unpacked very difficult at the other end. It isn't an easy task to cut through mega-layers of tape without risking cutting too deep and damaging the figure in the process. You only need enough tape to hold the bubble wrap closed, at the seam. There shouldn't be any need for tape going in multiple directions around the figure, nor to have tape covering up the bubble wrap entirely.

Okay, I've got it wrapped to withstand anything but a nuclear war - now what about the box?

For the box, make sure you don't cheat on the depth. Many people select a box that is wide and long enough, but not deep enough. A 12x12x6 Priority box would not be deep enough for this figure, even disassembled (it really wouldn't be wide enough either, as the horse is over 9" long from nose to tail). The general rule of thumb is 2" of clearance/insulation on all six sides. Lack of clearance, even when the figure was wrapped well with good packing material, is sometimes still enough grounds for a carrier to deny an insurance claim.

Boxes don't have to be brand-new to be good - sturdy boxes in all sizes can be obtained from many places for free (most any kind of grocery/chain store throws out good boxes every day and are only too happy to let you have one). As long as the box is still sturdy enough to not buckle if another package is thrown on top of it, it should be fine.

For filler, you can use any number of things. Packing peanuts, newspaper (either shredded or crumpled), more bubble wrap, etc. The main purpose of the insulating material in the box is to keep the item(s) from shifting around too much during shipment. Once the box is packed and sealed, you should be able to pick it up and shake it without feeling movement inside. If there is movement, you need to open the box back up and add more material to it until there isn't.

I've packed lots of porcelain figures before without doing all that, is it really necessary?

Yes, unfortunately.

It breaks my heart to buy a rare, limited-edition carousel and have it arrive in pieces. The pics below show just a few of them - I've received many more than these broken.

This was packed with cotton batting around the horse, and shredded paper in the box.  The batting was covering the horse completely, but it wasn't enough to protect it from an impact along the way.  Cotton batting isn't sturdy enough to make good packing material.

This one was wrapped well with bubble-wrap, and in a box with peanuts.  The only thing that was missed was good front-to-back coverage on the figure, and as a result the poorly-covered areas (tail and back legs) got broken.

 This one was wrapped with newspaper only.  It shows very well what happens when stress from the pole is felt on the figure, and why carousels tend to require a bit more careful packing than other kinds of porcelain figurines.  The poles are almost always brass, and brass is a soft enough metal to bend when stressed.  Unfortunately, the porcelain won't bend with it - it just breaks.

 I thank you for taking the time to read this guide - hopefully it will help more of these limited-edition figures survive the rough world of the shipping company.  I'll leave you with a perfect example of a trip through the war zone - the box shown below was purchased brand-new for this shipment, and arrived at my door looking like this.  Fortunately the seller packed it very well, and the item inside this box was the one used to demonstrate disassembly above.  :)