How to pack glasses for moving

An empty glass is a thin shell, and pressure on the outside has nothing to push against. A twist of paper inside gives the wall something to bear against, which turns a shell into a solid. This matters most for stemware and thin tumblers and least for heavy pressed glass. It costs a few seconds per glass and it is the difference between arriving with a set and arriving with most of one.

Wrap the stem first, on its own, then wrap the whole glass. The stem is where stemware breaks, because it is the thinnest part and it acts as a lever between the base and the bowl. A separate sheet around the stem doubles the material exactly where it is needed. Then stuff the bowl, wrap the whole glass in a second sheet, and stand it upright in a cell.

Upright, always. A glass on its side is loaded across its weakest axis and rolls, and a rolling glass finds its neighbour. Upright, the base takes the weight and the rim is protected by the cell wall. This is the same principle as plates on edge: load the shape the way it was designed to be loaded.

A cell divider box, which is a carton with a cardboard grid inside so every glass sits in its own compartment. A liquor store box is the same thing for free, because it was built to carry bottles and the dividers are already in it. Failing both, a dish barrel with paper packed hard between every glass works, but it needs more paper than most people expect: enough that the box does not rattle when shaken.

Bubble wrap instead of paper on the inside. Bubble wrap does not compress into the shape of a glass the way paper does, so it leaves voids, and voids are where movement happens. Paper inside and bubble wrap outside is fine. The other common failure is a box packed to the top, since the glasses at the bottom carry the weight of everything above them.