GEMINI COMIC BOOK MAILERS
Gemini Comic Book Mailers are a fantastic, top of the line packing product for shipping comics through the post. They're sturdy, durable and provide a great buffer to keep your books safe. While not waterproof, they easily fit inside a 10x13 poly mailers for added protection during transit.
PRICE: (as of 08/25/2024)
10: $29.95
25: $49.95
50: $74.95
100: $104.95
135: $124.95
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REVIEW
First Use
You tend to do a lot of research when you’re getting ready to sell a product. With comics, one of the most important pieces of research is how you are going to package and ship the book itself. Like any product, you want to make sure it gets to your customer in as best condition as possible. You have a lot of options when it comes to shipping material, and here I’m going to discuss one of the most popular options for mailing comic books: Gemini Mailers.
The first time using this box was a test to see if the post office would take it as a mailer. They did, which was great. A single comic, bagged and boarded in one of these mailers, which weighed about 8oz, was accepted for about $5. What’s great about that is buying a physical copy of a comic can be charged a flat shipping rate. The package got to where it was going, and the receiver told me it got there without any damage.
Quality of Material
As far as cardboard goes, it's pretty sturdy material. The mailers are corrugated, so they have more strength than they would otherwise, though corrugated cardboard for packaging is pretty standard nowadays. However, I think where it counts are the creases and the exposed sections. From my experience, the creases don't impact the structure at all really. You get a few perforated lines so you can make it taller/flatter depending on the comic (they can fit around 10-11 comics comfortably at max). No area of the comic remains exposed to air, but the corners are the most exposed sections just by nature of the box. There is a lot of buffer and material between where the comic sits and the outside of the box, so damage to the corners doesn't really translate, though it is the primary place water damage would get in if it were to get wet.
Protection
These mailers were made with really only one goal in mind: protecting your comics. And to that end, they do a really good job! While not impossible, physical damage is pretty tough to do simply because the padding is so great. The comic gets placed in the center, then wrapped in its own later top-to-bottom, and then gets wrapped again left-to-right. What works best here is the spacing in between the layers, which means impacts that would damage the box don't really transfer to the comic book. While I like to ship comics that I sell in bags and boards, you could probably mail a book in this and confidently get it there unharmed.
The only place these mailers lack is in water proofing which makes sense, considering it's just cardboard.
To combat this, when we mail comics from here, we also throw them into 10 x 13 poly mailers. This size seems to fit them best, they sit snuggly but aren't at any real risk of piercing the bag. With those compensating for potential water damage, these become perhaps the best comic protector easily available.
As a note, they are very sturdy and thus don't hold closed well on their own. We use masking tape with one edge folded into a pull tab to seal the box and make it easy for a customer to open.
Recommendation
When we ran our first Kickstarter for Hammerspace, cost-effectiveness was really the name of the game. We needed good quality, but wanted enough left over to fund the second issue.
While we considered plenty of competitors, everything from simple cardboard sleeves to knock-offs of this type of mailer, there was something to providing this level of protection that was attractive. They're more expensive than a cardboard sleeve, and I would wager properly the amount of damage any one package will receive is low; but we decided to use them regardless so that backers and future customers could feel confident that we were doing everything we can to protect these books because we care about our comics. If you can work it into your budget, I would highly recommend these Gemini Comic Book Mailers as a main shipping supply. I would also recommend supplementing them with plastic poly mailers, but it's worthwhile to know your comics are leaving in the best condition you can put them in.
