I have seen lots of message board discussions about boxes, but not a lot about baggies.

It seems that most people use regular baggies that you buy in the grocery store - either regular or the tougher freezer ones. But all of these baggies - even the snack sized one - have an opening of around 8 inches at the shortest. This means when you put the baggie in the container, you almost always have to fold the zipper. This creates two problems - (a) the zipper often splits/breaks at the bend, and (b) the zipper makes it hard to stuff the baggie back into the container, which often leads to a corner of the baggie inadvertently getting caught in the container seal, which allows moisture in.

Early on in my LBing career, I decided to buy baggies with a smaller opening, and have come to find that these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0194CUTNM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

work really really well. They are 4 mil thick, so they are even thicker than grocery store freezer bags, but better yet, the 4"x 6" size (with a 4" opening) almost always allows you to seal and roll-up a logbook and/or stamp without having to make a bend in the zipper. The extra stiffness also makes them easier to close, which it turn makes it more likely they will be sealed properly by a finder. I love these baggies. I use them for all my boxes and I carry a bunch around with me so that I can replace torn/zipper-damaged baggies when needed, which is a lot.

Does anyone else have baggie ideas to share?

skootch and I get nicer ones for our plants, and even sometimes think to buy appropriate sized ones! We do, however, tend to forget we have them, and end up using what we have on hand in the kitchen. We will probably never learn.

When going out on the trail, we have a bunch in our bag that are kitchen ones for sammiches, because we can put many of those in a pocket of our bag. They are used to replace torn baggies with ones sans holes.

One thing I will not do, though, is to layer crappy baggies with fresh ones. One bag a piece in the box! None of this multiple layers of torn baggies! Yeeeeck! It's just a creepy place for mold and critters!

love the baggies you pointed to.
Generally in the past, I've used freezer baggies (thicker ply) to encapsulate planted logbooks. I've stopped bagging my stamps, b/c particularly on long series (which is what I tend to plant), its a pain to continually open/close them.

When I've needed to 'trim' the freezer baggie to better size it to the logbook, I've generally used a flat iron (with a layer of paper b/w iron and baggie) to size it.

I use all of the above. In fact, I keep a supply of 4x6, 4x5, 3x4, and 2x3 craft baggies on hand at all times. They generally cost about 2 cents per baggie, and you can get them at Michael's with a 40% off coupon. As a geocacher, I baggie every trade item I leave in a geocache. I also wrap my wood-and-foam-mounted stamps in felt and enclose them in 4x6 or 4x5 craft bags.

I also keep a supply of pint-size freezer baggies on hand. Those can be difficult to find, and they are not cheap when you find them. But the log books I use don't fit well in the 4x6 baggies, and experience has shown that one thing you don't ever want to do is cram things too tightly in baggies.

I also have quart-size freezer baggies which cost less than the pint-size (!) and are easier to find, but they are too large and bulky for most of my letterboxing uses.

I also keep a supply of pint-size freezer baggies on hand. Those can be difficult to find, and they are not cheap when you find them.

I agree that pint size bags aren't easy to find in brick and mortar stores but Amazon carries them - pint size bags. You are also correct, they are more expensive than quart bags, averaging close to 20 cents a bag but I felt they were worth it since they don't take up as much room in my boxes.

Thank you, I just ordered some of these. I've been using pint-sized freezer bags. I get them at Walmart, stocking up during the garden harvest season.

Thanks for being this up. It has been a conundrum and pet peeve of mine for a while now. It definitely needed to be addressed. I will look into these thicker bags! Thanks again.

I was very interested in this specification you mentioned... not a common thing.

They are 4mm thick,

Once on the linked site... I quickly realized that wasn't the case...

These are 4 mil thick... not 4 mm! The difference is more than 153 mil...

One should take care in typing specifications. Other than disappointment there wasn't any problem though... actually funny to think about in fact...
But as they used to say Caveat Emptor!