First of all, what materials do you already have that you could use? One of
the easiest ways would be to use grey packing foam. It is soft and you can
cut out the shapes with a knife, but not too tight. It is not archival, but
china should be fine in it, just dont have airtight containers. I would
have these in trays or boxes, relatively shallow, about as deep as the pieces.

anyway, the foam is pretty cheap, and you can line the holes with high
densisty polypropalene plastic, so there is no grab and you can remove them
with out needing to yank at them. Before you put them away, take digital
pictures and make sure the places are labelled, so you can really reduce
handling.

This should give them plenty of protection from falling, bumping or just
about anything you can come up with. you could still stack the plates as
long as there is something in between them, and have the stack in foam also.

Elizabeth Walton
www.clotheslinejournal.com


At 11:38 AM 3/12/2004, you wrote:
>Hello everyone.
>
>I need some advice on storing my museum's china collection.  We have
>approximately 50 pieces of ca. 1850 Haviland china.  Our budget for this
>project is $100.  I realize this is rather inadequate, but it is the best
>we can do at the moment.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Paul McCoy
>
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