Anyone else hate packing peanuts?

Rambozo96

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It’s like the worst thing devised by man. Only to be rivaled by the Yugo, The Cher and Greg Allman collaborative dumpster fir....album that felt like the music equivalent of buying a puppy/having a baby to save a bad marriage, and New Coke. Good luck not making a big mess on the floor in the living room! I remember when I bought my D-25 and it was buried in those retched peanuts. Put my vacuum to good use but seriously unlike bubble wrap (when done properly of course.) things can shift within the packing peanuts. Especially heavier items.
 

gjmalcyon

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I received one of my guitars puchased from an LTG-er in a box packed with the corn starch packing peanuts (not the Styrofoam).

If I had a big enough tub of Cheetle, I would have had a lifetime supply of Cheetos.
 

twocorgis

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I agree, can't stand them. Other than custom fitted inserts, there's nothing better than paper and bubble wrap for protecting guitars in shipment.
 

Opsimath

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Not packing peanuts but back in the late 70's I wondered what was inside my bean bag chair. So I unzipped the zipper to see. Not just a little for a peek, oh no, I had to unzip it the whole way. There were gazillions of tiny little styrofoam dots. The worst part, all were supercharged with static electricity.

The moment those devils saw light they, en masse, jumped toward it. Hundreds of them making their great escape. My curiosity having been more than satisfied I tried to rezip as quickly as possible but the scheming little monsters stuck to my hands and fingers, the outside of the bean bag, and all along the zipper teeth. They knew exactly what they were doing. They motioned for more of their wicked kin to join them, which the beasts gladly did, sticking to their buddies and everything else in sight. I swear I could hear them cackling with laughter.

Somehow I eventually managed to get it zipped up, and I never looked inside a bean bag again. There does exist something even more sinister than packing peanuts. May you never encounter it.
 

Guildedagain

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I re-use them so they're ok but I ask people to wrap things before the peanuts so they don't jam into things you can't get them out of.

I learned a long time ago with guitar boxes full, open the case from the bottom, scoop out the top layer into a box, then as you pull the case out by the lower latch, the peanuts will fill the romeo void as you pull the case out, with some shaking as you do it.

Do it the other way and be prepared to pickup peanuts for a while ;]

They are staticky as H, the way to get the last little bits off your fingers back into wherever they go is with your breath, the moisture discharges the electricity and the little bits fall off, otherwise they could be stuck on you for a week.
 
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twocorgis

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I re-use them so they're ok but I ask people to wrap things before the peanuts so they don't jam into things you can't get them out of.

I learned a long time ago with guitar boxes full, open the case from the bottom, scoop out the top layer into a box, then as you pull the case out by the lower latch, the peanuts will fill the romeo void as you pull the case out, with some shaking as you do it.

Do it the other way and be prepared to pickup peanuts for a while ;]

I open guitar boxes exactly the same way!
 

amnicon

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Packing peanuts absolutely fall into the hate category for me, but they don't quite make the absolutely-frickin-not-get-that-out-of-my-house category with plastic easter grass and christmas tree tinsel.
 

hansmoust

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Anyone else hate packing peanuts?

Way back during the second half of the '70s when I started importing guitars from the U.S. it was mainly crumpled newspaper that was used to keep guitars from moving around in the shipping boxes. When business started to increase it became harder and harder for dealers, who were basically all still small businesses, to get sufficient packing material and the styrofoam 'peanuts' were introduced in the 'vintage guitar' world just like anywhere else. At that point in time a large percentage of the shipping of guitars was done between dealers; remember that this was long before the internet and buying a guitar by mail order was not considered something that the average customer was accustomed to. So a lot of the ‘small time’ dealers were trading guitars among each other to get the stock that would sell within their own ‘territorium’.

The ‘peanuts’ were considered a nuisance by most of the dealers till one of them came up with the brilliant idea of cutting off ladies panty hoses (or stockings) at the knee, fill ‘m up with ‘peanuts’ and tie a knot at the open end and use them as ‘reusable’ stuffing material. He asked other dealers to do the same, which many of them did. When you received a shipment you took the ‘stuffed panties’ out of the shipping box, put them in a storage box and use them again when you had to ship something yourself. So for some time there was this small community of people who were seriously trying to keep their workshops, and consequently the world, free from floating ‘peanuts’.

However since I was on the other side of the ‘big pond’ there were a lot more guitars coming my way than I was sending out, so I ended up with more ‘stuffed panties’ than I could use. With the introduction of more modern packing materials this simple concept of re-using ‘peanuts’ eventually disappeared, but it was great while it lasted.

I still have a box filled with ‘stuffed panties’ somewhere up in my attic and every once in a while I use some when I need to ship something, but I’m afraid that when I’m no longer around there will be somebody cleaning up the attic and wondering what kind of ‘weirdo’ must have lived in the house!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 
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Rich Cohen

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Way back during the second half of the '70s when I started importing guitars from the U.S. it was mainly crumpled newspaper that was used to keep guitars from moving around in the shipping boxes. When business started to increase it became harder and harder for dealers, who were basically all still small businesses, to get sufficient packing material and the styrofoam 'peanuts' were introduced in the 'vintage guitar' world just like anywhere else. At that point in time a large percentage of the shipping of guitars was done between dealers; remember that this was long before the internet and buying a guitar by mail order was not considered something that the average customer was accustomed to. So a lot of the ‘small time’ dealers were trading guitars among each other to get the stock that would sell within their own ‘territorium’.

The ‘peanuts’ were considered a nuisance by most of the dealers till one of them came up with the brilliant idea of cutting off ladies panty hoses (or stockings) at the knee, fill ‘m up with ‘peanuts’ and tie a knot at the open end and use them as ‘reusable’ stuffing material. He asked other dealers to do the same, which many of them did. When you received a shipment you took the ‘stuffed panties’ out of the shipping box, put them in a storage box and use them again when you had to ship something yourself. So for some time there was this small community of people who were seriously trying to keep their workshops, and consequently the world, free from floating ‘peanuts’.

However since I was on the other side of the ‘big pond’ there were a lot more guitars coming my way than I was sending out, so I ended up with more ‘stuffed panties’ than I could use. With the introduction of more modern packing materials this simple concept of re-using ‘peanuts’ eventually disappeared, but it was great while it lasted.

I still have a box filled with ‘stuffed panties’ somewhere up in my attic and every once in a while I use some when I need to ship something, but I’m afraid that when I’m no longer around there will be somebody cleaning up the attic and wondering what kind of ‘weirdo’ must have lived in the house!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
Hans, I didn't know you had a panty-hose fetish. :sneaky:
 

richardp69

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I used to pack primarily with peanuts until I concluded if I hate unpacking a geetar chock full o nuts then likely my customers do as well. I still use them but sparingly, primarily on the bottom 25% of the guitar box.
 

Opsimath

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Way back during the second half of the '70s when I started importing guitars from the U.S. it was mainly crumpled newspaper that was used to keep guitars from moving around in the shipping boxes. When business started to increase it became harder and harder for dealers, who were basically all still small businesses, to get sufficient packing material and the styrofoam 'peanuts' were introduced in the 'vintage guitar' world just like anywhere else. At that point in time a large percentage of the shipping of guitars was done between dealers; remember that this was long before the internet and buying a guitar by mail order was not considered something that the average customer was accustomed to. So a lot of the ‘small time’ dealers were trading guitars among each other to get the stock that would sell within their own ‘territorium’.

The ‘peanuts’ were considered a nuisance by most of the dealers till one of them came up with the brilliant idea of cutting off ladies panty hoses (or stockings) at the knee, fill ‘m up with ‘peanuts’ and tie a knot at the open end and use them as ‘reusable’ stuffing material. He asked other dealers to do the same, which many of them did. When you received a shipment you took the ‘stuffed panties’ out of the shipping box, put them in a storage box and use them again when you had to ship something yourself. So for some time there was this small community of people who were seriously trying to keep their workshops, and consequently the world, free from floating ‘peanuts’.

However since I was on the other side of the ‘big pond’ there were a lot more guitars coming my way than I was sending out, so I ended up with more ‘stuffed panties’ than I could use. With the introduction of more modern packing materials this simple concept of re-using ‘peanuts’ eventually disappeared, but it was great while it lasted.

I still have a box filled with ‘stuffed panties’ somewhere up in my attic and every once in a while I use some when I need to ship something, but I’m afraid that when I’m no longer around there will be somebody cleaning up the attic and wondering what kind of ‘weirdo’ must have lived in the house!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

Well, you could print out the above as explanation and put it in your box of stuffed panties, but what's the fun in that? Imagining the faces and questions of the uninformed is far more entertaining.
 

GGJaguar

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Guitarchaeology is fun when exploring the attic!
 

Uke

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WARNING: I detest packing peanuts (styrofoam variety). Our pet dog years ago loved popcorn which I'd toss to her while I was eating a bowl. Long story short; somehow some packing peanuts fell on the floor one day and the dog snatched a few up and swallowed them -- eat first, ask questions later, as dogs often do. This one incident initiated kidney failure from which the dog died about two years later. Keep packing peanuts away from your pets.
 
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