There have been a couple of posts here indicating that ordinary wax does not withstand the sorting equipment used by the postal service. Folks have reported correspondence arriving with the seal shredded off. I wanted to see what would happen, mainly so I could make an informed decision about whether to buy flexible or regular wax. So I ran a test by sending myself a letter sealed with Aladine brand wax.

Here's the seal prior to mailing


I mailed it from a few towns away. It arrived virtually undamaged, save for some light discoloration on some of the raised edges. The seal itself is totally intact, including the little strand of wax on the right of the image.



I did nothing special to the seal other than making sure I didn't have a big, lumpy blob of wax, which I suspect would have increased the odds of it being torn off. So in my assessment, ordinary wax can withstand the post, provided you don't make a big blob.

Hope this helps anyone thinking about using sealing wax.
Bob

Thanks for doing this test. Maybe I'll try my sealing way again and concentrate on keeping it managebly thin.

Hi, Bob -

I have some Aladine wax sticks that you use in a hot glue gun. Haven't tried it yet. Is this what you used?

Judybug

I used the regular sticks, melted over flame. It's a guy thing: the thrill of possibly setting the letter and desk ablaze.

I kept the depth to a minimum. Having seen some other folks' seals, I think mine are too thin to get a nice effect.

I've subsequently sent a few other correspondence and haven't had (even thicker blobs) ripped off by the postal service. Maybe I'm just lucky.

I just received a few Atelier Gargoyle flexible sticks and the colors are splendid.

Bob

Send one across the country.

My response to this post, as nearly as may be translated into text, was:

...

. . .

. . . . . . SEALING WAX??

MUST HAVE! MONGO WANT!

So I've ordered a custom seal from Wax Works, and sealing wax from Pendemonium, and I'm practically bouncing in my desk chair like a two-year-old and giggling with repressed glee as I await the arrival of both.

My closest friend lives in sunny Seattle, and I live on the outskirts of the Penn State Borg Collective, so I have an excellent excuse to do that cross-continental seal-mailing experiment. I'll get photos of whatever the postal service leaves intact and post them here.

I'll admit to having gone on a sealing wax/seals binge this winter. My correspondence rate went up immediately. I decided to try the glue gun faux wax and some that is supposedly real wax but flexible. I don't use a glue gun, though. Have to admit to being attracted to an open flame, too. You've not lived until the wax has caught fire and fallen flaming onto the envelope.

(But then, I married a man who used to work in ice cream manufacturing and set the flavorings on fire in the back room to see what kind of colors they'd burn. )

Colors I really like in the faux wax: gold, copper, dark green, periwinkle/lavender, the pearl colors. I'm not fond of the brighter colors, as they look to me like someone melted a plastic McDonald's toy over the letter.

I send my Christmas Cards with seal wax. I sign the card and put the seal and wax next to my signature on the card. I don't use it on the actual seal. They always get destroyed because the sorting machines crush them.

I suppose, in a pinch, one could fold the paper on which a letter was written in such a way that it could be sealed, and thus have the fun of a seal which actually seals something, but avoid the unpleasantness of postal vandalism.

The Great Cross-Country Seal Mailing Test has been completed! Results follow.

Minor cracking, and a chunk taken off by sorting machinery, was the only damage. I used J. Herbin wax to make the seal. So, while the USPS isn't exactly kind to wax seals, it isn't impossible to use them and have them survive the journey.

Must have, Mongo want!

LOL!

That says it all.

I really like that custom seal. Did you draw it?

I have goofed around with a number of designs. The first was for a family reunion t-shirt. My wife has some work experience in graphic design and when I sketched out my idea in pencil, she ran with it, had it digitized and colored and Whammo! Shirts for all!

I can't remember who did my custom seal. But again, they managed quite well with my inexperienced hand drawing and I am quite happy with it.

I have gone to the glue gun sealing wax. While I appreciate a fire as much as the next guy, I for some reason, can't get that wax to burn fast enough. The candle sometimes goes out. The wax sets up before I press the seal into it.

The gun works better for me.

Not that I've completely given up on the candles....

Dave

I've started snailing over the past two months and have sealed them all. So far I've not heard of any seals damaged.

Been using Herbin 3in sticks and Atelier Gargoyle both are soft and bend well..

Now to find a really cool personal stamp..

I use sealing wax for a long time and 90% arrived broken. Also the seals to Carrie arrived broken to her. I'm really thinking about flexible wax...

I "drew" it using a hieroglyphic text editor and Adobe Illustrator. I sent the design to this fellow, and he turned it into a seal. Unfortunately, it's quite shallow, and barely makes an impression in the wax. The Wax-Works guy makes a good quality seal, but you have to know exactly what you're doing before you order it. As I'm not familiar with the engraving machinery, I wasn't aware that my seal was too complex to make anything but a very shallow engraving. He didn't warn me or discuss other possibilities, such as sacrificing some detail for depth. And he isn't responding to my emails. So, I give him a half-hearted recommendation. If you know precisely what you want, and how it will translate into a wax seal, and you have it all ready in Adobe Illustrator, you can get a seal from this person for $45.00 (unless his prices have changed).

I'm currently looking for someone who'll do a better, deeper seal, and won't charge me $500 for it.

I've had excellent results with the flexible wax from Atelier Gargoyle. The customer service is excellent, they are very fast on replying to emails, even on weekends. In addition to answering all my questions and sending me an electronic invoice (the cart system on their website isn't functioning), they also included an additional stick of wax in another colour to try out.

The seals themselves are very hard though flexible and have an appropriate "wax" texture. They survive the mail with nary any damage and take good sharp impressions. I was very satisfied with my whole experience with Atelier Gargoyle and heartily recommend them!

I too have been using both real and faux wax with delightful results domestically.Only one lost so far out of 30 letters.
I know that hand-checked letters cost an extra .17 here in the US.But one can get around that by taking the gamble of letting it go through the normal channels.

JD
Vancouver,USA

The method that I have found that works to get a nice shape/ thickness is to have a dollop of wax that is just slightly larger than the diameter of the seal and to only press about halfway of what you think to I have also found that inking the seal then pressing makes for a neat effect.

K

I haven't run into any problems with the seals. Though since May 15th, I guess the USPS is getting more stringent on enforcing thickness regulations and the seals could impact that.



I usually try for a shallower, more translucent seal. My method is to make a dollop just smaller than the seal and press quite firmly. This allows most of the wax to go into the impression and just a little to escape around the edges. You have to take care to press straight down though or the wax escapes from one side and results in an imcomplete seal.

I'm worried that the translucent seal will break since that's what a wax seal is suppose to do! be easily opened but tell whether it has been tampered with.

K

Yes, I'd worry about breakage of a thin seal cast with traditional sealing wax. The Atelier stuff though isn't at all friable, it can easily be bent ninety degrees with no ill consequences. The only time I've seen that it is at all delicate is the fifteen seconds or so when it is neither fully molten nor set but in a transition phase. That's the only time I've damaged a seal (by pulling the signet out just a second too early).

That's the only thing I find disappointing about the modern waxes like Atelier Gargoyle's. The wax can't be broken, so it isn't really a seal, just a decoration.

That isn't meant to cast aspersions at Atelier Gargoyle, though, it's only a lamentation over modern circumstances which make a genuine letter-sealing seal impractical. Atelier Gargoyle's sealing wax is made exceedingly well, it's a great product which is both attractive and durable. And they're very nice people, too.

Hold on a second there is still actual real shellac based not flexy wax being produced and I've got a dozen or so sticks of it to prove it I've also got a few different paper folds that when sealed with wax ( or a stamp) do exactly what traditional wax would do. So don't dispair as there is still the possibility of using fountain pens there is still the opportunity to use real sealing wax.

K

I'm looking to buy something different in terms of a seal. Does anyone have custom seals that'd like to share? I'd be interested to see what others have beyond the standard craft store clipart types.

I'd be cool if you could post pictures of them here and even maybe send postcards or letters with them affixed to those interested.

Is there any interest in this?

Mine is the same image I use for my avatar pic. It's a pair of hieroglyphs, the ibis on a standard for Djehuty, god of scribes (Thoth if you're feeling Greek) combined with the glyph of the scribal toolkit.

I've played around a bit with this for about a year now and have arrived at something that works very well for me. Initially, I bought some cheap wax from that auction site, and much of it didn't make it through the postal machines. Also, I was applying a very thick seal. As time went on, I decreased the thickness of the seal, yet kept the amount of wax sufficient to get a crisp and full imprint. The cheap wax still didn't fare too well. I then obtained some good sealing wax - Stuart Houghton. It's rare that one doesn't make it through now. To me, the key is not going overboard with the amount of wax used and using a good wax. For the record, I only use real wax, not the faux stuff or the flexible stuff.

Have you found this person yet? I am looking to have a seal made and the wax-works site interested me very much, but your *review* of your seal has kind of dissuaded me...

Nope, no luck yet. If you know what you're doing, the wax-works person isn't necessarily a bad choice. The engraving is done by a computer-controlled machine. The problem I had was that I wasn't aware of the limitations of the machine, and he didn't warn me that my design would result in very shallow engraving. So, if your design has relatively thick lines, or you know how these engraving machines work, then $45 for this guy's work beats $500+ for a professional hand-engraver.