Suggestions on moving...OMG! (1 Viewer)

Lo1863

Lo1863

Sergeant First Class
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Hello all!
I am going to be in the process of moving in little over a month and the most stressful thing about this move will be relocating my toy soldier collection. My collection currently consists of mostly First Legion and some King & Country coming to a total of around 150 individual figures housed within a nice large curio cabinet. I have kept all the original boxes, but I'm leery of re-boxing all my soldiers. I don't have a problem re-boxing the King & Country ones as they are more bulky/sturdy figures. The First Legion (American Civil War & World War II) are a different story as I believe you have to be extremely careful with these when placing them and removing them from their original boxes due to their fine detail. I was wondering if any of you who have gone through this experience previously may have some advice on alternative ways of moving a collection? Foam padding? Bubble bags? Anything??? :confused:

Signed,
Stressed-out Toy Soldier Collector
 
If you're moving them yourself, you can lay egg crate foam down, put a layer of figure, more egg crate, more figures etc. I'd be weary of delicate swords, arrows, etc though
 
Cameron,

It depends to where you're moving. How far is your new home from present one? If it's not far, perhaps you could wrap one in bubble wrap with pieces of drinking straw over bayonets, swords and the like.

Brad
 
jazzeum said:
Cameron,

It depends to where you're moving. How far is your new home from present one? If it's not far, perhaps you could wrap one in bubble wrap with pieces of drinking straw over bayonets, swords and the like.

Brad
Click to expand...

It's not going to be a long distance move. Probably no more than 20 miles.
 
In that case you might want to bubble wrap each figure and move them in your car, rather than placing each figure back into its respective box and so forth. I'd make sure that you're the only one doing this as your girlfriend or wife or who ever may not appreciate their fragile nature and could inadvertently damage them.
 
I would use a pile of soft towels and layer them...or I would gently and carefully rebox them...either way...the movers wouldn't touch them...I would transport them personally...

while yours is no slight chore...some people have much larger collections that are on display in their house...for them to move...just moving their collections is a major undertaking...

I have thought of downsizing my home many times...but the thought of moving all the figures...which are all on display...plus some large scale dioramas...is a major source of dismissal in moving...best of luck...
 
If it is just a drive, I would put them individually up in a crate with foam around it. I did it two years ago for a drive to the Chicago show and nothing was damaged.

https://www.amazon.com/BFCSA10102-A..._n_feature_keywords_two_browse-bin:5994962011

If you are an aggressive driver and need to master narrow curvy hillsides in your BMW, you might need to secure the figure individually with Tac N' Stic in the crate:

http://www.target.com/p/scotch-remo...R1AHQyp_G_5mjxR8UQz2FRoC0zrw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

This is what professional figure painters use when traveling.
 
Go to ULINE.com. Buy yourself a box of 2x2 bubble bags. You can just slip each figure in a bag and stand them in a Sterlite plastic storage box. I moved several thousand figures this way with no damage. Much faster then putting them in their original boxes.
 
zblang said:
If you're moving them yourself, you can lay egg crate foam down, put a layer of figure, more egg crate, more figures etc. I'd be weary of delicate swords, arrows, etc though
Click to expand...

Myself, Matt from Hobby Bunker and Nicholas from Crown move thousands of figures from show to show around the country with no damage, I wouldn't sweat moving 150 figures 20 miles down the road.

As Zach suggested, go to Target or Walmart and buy a Rubbermaid bin and a mattress pad with egg crate of dimpled foam. Measure the inside of the bin and cut the mattress pad into sheets, then lay the figures in and put a layer of foam over them, then more figures with another layer and so on.

And as he suggests; any figure with an odd pose or swords/bows and arrows/etc, etc, just put them back in their original box.

If I lived near you, I'd offer to do it for you, but that said, you'll be fine............if you pull this off with no damaged figures, you've got a future in the toy soldier business........................:wink2:
 
Going to be a tedious task no matter how you do it. I'm grateful we made our last move 21 yrs ago, before I started collecting. Chris
 
When I moved my soldiers I used large plastic plastic storage containers, the ones that are long and shallow. I placed a large bath towel on the bottom of it laid the soldiers on the towel, placed another towel on top of the soldiers then another towel. I only did three layers. All the soldiers survived with out any damage. I fel that this was easier then reboxing.

Brian
 
zblang said:
If I ever I move, I'm hiring these three to pack me up!!!! {sm4}
Click to expand...

It will either go off without a hitch or mimic a three stooges short...............I'm betting on the former.....................but the laughs generated during the process will be the latter.................
 
I have a bunch of old cigar boxes that I was also going to use for my move. I am in the same boat, but might need to store mine for a 2 months before I can unbox them. How would this affect the advice?

Supposedly they will be in temperature controlled environments.
 
Toilet paper and Medium sized paper cups..

Softly wrap your pieces in the toilet paper and place in the paper cups.. use crumpled up toilet paper at the bottom of the cups..

Arrange the cups in boxes..

Been using this technique for 50 years.. moved 10 times in 10 years with no casualties..

IMG-20170403-WA0001.jpg
 
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Thank you all for the wonderful and very helpful responses! I know I don't have a collection as large as most of you who have gone through a move before, but it's still stressful to me. I think I will go the route of either using the egg crate foam or to use the plastic bubble wrap bags with some layers of soft towels. I already have several nice large plastic storage bins from Sterilite that I purchased years ago to store the boxes. Thanks again guys and keep me in your prayers as I begin this process soon. :)

Warrior said:
If I lived near you, I'd offer to do it for you, but that said, you'll be fine............if you pull this off with no damaged figures, you've got a future in the toy soldier business........................:wink2:
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George, I do wished I lived closer to you so a true professional could handle it...thanks for the advice! :D
 
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I moved to AZ from NJ in 2005 and had 95 18 X 25 corrugated boxes shipped together with my household stuff via American Van lines. About 25 of the 95 boxes were opened sets which I re-packed in the original boxed sets. They were stored with my household stuff in a rented garaged at the apartment complex which has no controlled temperature. Imagine the Arizona summer which could hit from the low 95F to the high 110F (and sometimes could hit 118-120F). When my house was finally built in 8 months and moved to my new home, I was expecting the worst (peeled paint, melted parts etc.). To my surprise, all the sets were intact with no peeling on the paint work. I guess the the styrofoam in the packaging provided a shield-block from the heat. All's well that ends well.

Noli-Poli
 
Pack well and pray hard...thats all you can really do.

John from Texas
 
Lo1863 said:
George, I do wished I lived closer to you so a true professional could handle it...thanks for the advice! :D
Click to expand...

I don't know about the professional part.................:wink2:..................when I first started carrying matte finished metal, specifically K & C, I used to take all the figures out of the boxes at the shows, then put them all back in. At a couple of the shows, I was literally the last person out the door, the hall was empty except for me.

I had to come up with a better way; Thor Johnson from Aeroart fame is the one who told me about the egg crate/mattress padding idea. Packing up well north of 1,000 figures at a show used to take three or more hours now takes about a one hour with the foam.

There are a number of figures have bows/arrows/swords/odd poses that cannot go in the foam, they have to go back into their original boxes, I leave that to Larry at the shows, he does a good job at repacking, only breaks about a dozen figures at each show....................:wink2:................................

When I moved about 12 years ago, it was a nightmare moving my 1/72nd scale collection, you wouldn't think it to be the case, but it was, luckily I had plenty of time, so I did it in stages.

Good luck, slow and steady wins the race..................
 
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