How to best unseal 5000 empty sealed envelopes

June 21, 2004 6:18 AM

Several years ago, I bought two huge boxes of standard envelopes from Costco, thinking “Isn’t this great? I’ll never run out!” I stuck them in my basement and completely forgot about them. I found them the other day, but now they are all sealed (due, I suppose, to humidity and time). Is there any way I can unseal 5,000+ empty envelopes?
posted by grateful to Grab Bag (13 answers total)

Now this is a weird one. Steam would do the trick, but for 5,000? Does your health club have a sauna?
posted by ChasFile at 6:21 AM on June 21, 2004

And even if you put them in a sauna, you'd have to open them all so they wouldn't stick again when closed. And the quality of the envelopes wouldn't improve (not to mention the risk of the other pre-glued edges coming loose). All in all, I'd say consider it a lesson learnt and move on.
posted by fvw at 6:23 AM on June 21, 2004

Ditto fvw.
posted by armoured-ant at 6:41 AM on June 21, 2004

REMEMBER SUSAN!
posted by quonsar at 6:53 AM on June 21, 2004

If I were you, I'd forget about the envelopes, and worry about what you're going to do with that 50lb can of tuna and 10 gallon jar of mayonnaise.
posted by crunchland at 7:08 AM on June 21, 2004

Response by poster: Everybody's invited over for tuna salad sandwiches. (BYO Bread)
posted by grateful at 7:15 AM on June 21, 2004

Use them for grocery lists.
posted by Pockets at 7:30 AM on June 21, 2004

I think you're SOL on this one, I'm afraid. Lesson learned, yadda yadda.

Pockets is right though, you do have a lifetime supply of scrap paper.

Hmm... I can't think of any brilliant uses for 5000 sealed envelopes, but I am sure someone else can.
posted by jerseygirl at 7:54 AM on June 21, 2004

1 Set up a 900 number.
2 Print the envelopes with an invitation to join a contest, entered by calling that number.
3 ???
4 Profit
posted by Goofyy at 8:13 AM on June 21, 2004

Well, why do you need to unseal them all now? You could just steam them individually when you want to use them.
posted by reklaw at 9:40 AM on June 21, 2004

Best answer: I'd definitely send them to people.
posted by callmejay at 9:46 AM on June 21, 2004 [1 favorite]

And that's why I no longer shop at Costco. Bulk purchases too often equals bulk waste.

Anyone need several hundred file folders? I've got several lifetimes supply!
posted by five fresh fish at 9:47 AM on June 21, 2004

Anyone need several hundred file folders? I've got several lifetimes supply!

I'm very sure there are a dozen or so small non-profits near you who would love to have them, as file folders are a) necessary and b) somewhat expensive.

Or, give them to goodwill/salvation army, who will, in turn, sell them and use the money to do good things for people.
posted by anastasiav at 11:05 AM on June 21, 2004