How to Save Weight Mailing Stuff in an Envelope
PWE Tricks for Multiple Cards or Coins
PWEs (plain white envelopes) are great for sending low cost trading cards.
And eBay’s Standard Envelope which ships through USPS just like a normal stamp is even better as it’s a few cents cheaper and provides tracking (although not the greatest tracking but it sort of works).
If you are sending multiple cards you may start to run into the problem of weight. Likewise if you are sending coin(s) which can also be mailed safely in a PWE and take advantage of the eBay Standard Envelope.
You want to stay at or below one of the three tiers: 1 oz, 2 oz or 3 oz.
With multiple cards and protective packaging it’s easy to go above. And it’s certainly in the seller’s advantage if you can sneak it into the next lowest tier.
The first trick is to have a scale so you can actually measure it. Here’s some other tricks, described in the sections below:
The Top Loaders
The Shipping Label
The Envelope
The Packing Slip
The Top Loaders
Unless you are a psycho, you’re putting cards in penny sleeves and then providing some rigidity. For instance, if a single card, then you’re putting that penny-sleeved card in either a top loader or a cheaper but less rigid card saver.
Multiple top loaders can make an envelope get heavy quick however. Also you’re running the risk of becoming too thick for USPS requirements (1/4 inch thick) or even worse tripping up the postal machines.
This guide from WaxPackHero shows a great way to fix this problem.
Essentially, you take advantage of team bags.
Put one card at the top or bottom per team bag in a top loader, and then the middle card(s) are just in their penny sleeves. On the other side, put a piece of thin cardboard—either a big rectangle filling most of the envelope, or what I usually do is smaller rectangle a bit bigger than a card that fit right into the team bag(s).
As with most card packing for PWEs, use little pieces of masking or painter’s tape to secure the team bags. As WaxPackHero does, I print out the packing slip, fold in thirds and tape the goods to inner third of that, fold the ends over and stuff in the envelope.
The Shipping Label
If you’re using eBay’s Standard Envelope, then you are likely printing that out onto either a sticky label or a piece of paper and taping that to the envelope.
One way to save a bit of weight is to use the sticky labels instead of a bunch of tape with paper. Either way, you can save weight by cutting the label to right below the address.
If you’re really brave you could attempt to print directly onto the envelope, but I have not tried that.
The Envelope
Some brands of envelopes are thicker than others, and hence heavier.
I’ve been using two brands that I’ve had great luck with:
Mead No. 10 Security Envelopes
Blue Summit Supplies #10 Security Envelopes
Both have press-it self adhesive closures. The Mead’s adhesive seems to be better, in that it’s less goopy when peeling off the backing. However in terms of shipping I don’t know if there’s any measurable difference in the adhesives.
The Blue Summit is somewhat cheaper in bulk. But…
The Mead is much lighter!
A Blue Summit envelope comes in a whopping 0.19 ounces!
Whereas a Mead is only 0.12 ounces.
The Packing Slip
I like to put the packing slip in the envelope as a kind of wrapper around everything and it’s also kind of an anchor. And provides what little extra protection the layers of paper provide.
However, if you are using thick paper, that will of course be heavier. Regardless of the paper thickness, if you need to shave a fraction of an ounce off, one trick is to simply cut some of the bottom of the packing slip off, you can even go for a whole third of the page.
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