The strange mailings of a cel

[Yuuki]

*dusts off the handle*

I'm wondering if I'm over-reacting in my head a bit when I can't fathom why someone would do this... but has anyone ever bought a cel and had the seller roll it and send it to you in a box?

All of my collector's vibes are going "WHAT IN THE--!??"

Then some part of me responds with "woah, calm down... it appears to have survived it's journey... and the BG is just very curly now... time to go talk about this on the internets". It was a pan cel and I was worried the mail would bend it or something... but then I get a box and it has my cel squished in there and I'm just... WHAT?

*rather dumbfounded* This is outside my safety zone of generous amounts of flat, protective cardboard.

[sensei]

I've missed out on this treat so far -- sounds as if the seller was more used to selling posters and sericel-type stuff rather than real paint-on-plastic artwork.

I did once get a cel sent me in one of those floppy Tyvek envelopes that the USPS sells to ship documents. No backing except for the douga. Much to my surprise, it arrived unbent and in perfect condition.

Any other inventive modes of shipping cels?

[Keropi]

No weird cel shipping stories from me.

My only story is the large pan sketch that was sent to me through the mail in a large, bubble envelope with nothing else inside of the envelope. Of course the sketch arrived pretty wrinkled up. Hard to believe someone thought that was a good idea.

[RePete]

Shopping Mall Japan decided to send me 6 meters of bubble wrap on one of my previous orders. Whoever was wrapping seemed to have had a bit to much fun. Now I have a nice stockpile of bubblewrap

Awhile back I also ordered a Golden Boy cel off some ebay seller. When received there was this one tiny 10x15cm piece of cardboard, so not properly protected. The envelope was in pretty bad condition but the cels were OK. Was hard to tell if was damaged from shipping or just showing signs of age.

On another note, SMJ loves to spam me with those little air-pads in their box's :p

[cutiebunny]

The worst I've received is a cel sent from France, in a manila envelope. That's it. No cel bag of any kind was included. I was fortunate that it didn't get dinged up too much.

With SMJ, there was one instance where I received a CCS pan cel that was improperly packaged, so at some point during transit, the cel bent and some paint chipped off. Although it wasn't an incredibly expensive cel, it was from my favorite CCS episode, so I was extremely upset.

I've had odd dealings with shikishi though. I won one through YaoiCon a couple years ago during their now-defunct holiday giveaway, gave them instructions on how to package it and paid for priority mail (and attempted to pay for insurance but they told me it would all be included..). They disregarded everything I said, put it in a toploader, wrote "Do not bend" on the envelope, and the shikishi was bent at some point during its transit. The other shikishi, which they sent first class and the same way, ended up fine. So, really...I'm not sure what the lesson is here.

Regarding shipping, if it's a standard size A4L cel, B4 sized background or all but the jumbo shikishi, I ship with the item inside a plastic B4 container from Daiso with a bubble envelope. AR-99 and I experimented on shipping this method this year, with me sending a shikishi to him, and then he sending one back in the same container to me. In both instances, we taped the bagged shikishi to the inside of the container to prevent it from any damage during transit. As long as you tape up whatever damage (usually to the corners) that occurs in transit, the plastic container is pretty resilent. The container withstood the shipping and, if taped up, could have done a third.

[AR-99]

Oh cool, I was wondering how that container fared after I sent it.

I too have something to add. A genga set I got today was shipped in a box. The set was in a bag and in front of it were foam peanuts and behind a plastic sheet, none of that inside the bag, of course.

[Eternal Squall]

No weird cel shipping stories from me.

My only story is the large pan sketch that was sent to me through the mail in a large, bubble envelope with nothing else inside of the envelope. Of course the sketch arrived pretty wrinkled up. Hard to believe someone thought that was a good idea.

Ditto. I had several large pan sketch sets sent to me the same way. I had to pick them up at the post office, almost screamed when the postal employee threw the floppy package up on the counter! Do not know how, but all the sets where unharmed.

[Keropi]

Well, at least your shipment was probably thicker than my one piece of paper. A sheet of paper bends pretty easily.