Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! It's Broken!

Something you never want to see is a very old piece of cast iron that you have bought broken. Even worse is when you never got to enjoy it and it arrived broken. People think cast iron is invincible, maybe it's Iron man's fault. Cast iron is actually very brittle (that is one reason that modern cast iron is so thick) but treated with a little bit of care it will last an extremely long time, generations in fact.

I have received quite a few pieces of cast iron that luckily were not broken, one was a camp dutch oven with feet that tore through the canvas bag it was in, through the bubble wrap and through the box so that the feet were sitting on the ground. I have received a 150 year old piece that was wrapped in minimal bubble wrap sliding around loose in box. My favorite is a beautiful Griswold Victor #8 skillet that I bought which included a handling fee and it was just thrown into the box with nothing to protect it. You judge the results!

To ship cast iron it should be wrapped thoroughly in bubble wrap or newspaper. There should be at least one inch between the cast iron and the box on all sides with that area filled with crumpled newspaper so the cast iron piece does not move.