Shipping Decoys

Little if anything has been written about shipping decoys.  So to keep with the spirit of Chesapeake Old Decoys, which is to bring new and interesting content to Chesapeake decoy collecting, I have decided to share what I have learned the hard way about shipping the birds.

There are many ways to package and pack decoys with many materials used for ensuring the safety of the valued birds in transit.  The main consideration is the safe packing of the head, which is the most fragile part which includes the even more fragile bill.  Decorative type decoys that have extended wings or complex bases are another story, but for this article we will stick with the more common working type decoys, which comprise the bulk of the Upper Chesapeake decoys and many others areas of the Bay.

I have found that the head is often not given the amount of packing that is needed to ensure that the decoys arrives at it's destination intact. 

Of the many materials used to pack decoys, I have found that bubble wrap and newspaper will do the job well, with less mess than most other materials.  Foam type peanuts or pellets are fine, but the static electricity charge they pick up is annoying and a headache to deal with in my opinion.

Newspaper is more labor intensive than many materials, but the low cost is of consideration and it works as well as other material.  Newspaper is also very recyclable and lends itself to other uses and you can even read it !

Below is a photo of how I wrap decoys.  You can see that a lot of attention is given to the head to the point that it is the same size or larger than the body.  I have used masking tape for illustration as the clear tape I usually use is not visible with the bubble wrap.  By wrapping sheets of bubble wrap around the head and securing with tape as you go a thick barrier is build up that really protects the easily broken head assembly.

Boxing the decoy is the easy part of packing and simply involves putting some packing material on the bottom of the box and surrounding the decoy with more material, then packing , more on the top.

I have found that the sides are the most often damages parts of the box and can cause the most damage to the decoy.  Realizing this, some decoy auction houses double box very valuable decoys and this works very well.

This of course adds considerable cost to shipping and handling and is probably not necessary most of the time.

Below is an example of the most common single box shipping container and packing.

The bottom and sides have been packed well and more newspaper will be added on top.  With this method of packing a decoy a larger box is not needed, but a larger box is always safer, but can be overkill.

I hope this packing method is of some help to someone so that they can improve the safety of their decoy in transit.

 Mike Robinson (Chesapeake Old Decoys)                HOME