Fragile, handle with care (wine glass)
The contents can break: handle the box with care and do not drop, throw or crush it.
Who puts it on the box
The sender or packer, when the contents are glass, ceramics, instruments or anything else that breaks.
How to read it
Carry it, do not throw it; put it on top of heavier boxes, not under them. ISO 780:1997 put the glass near the top left corner of all four upright sides of the box. A glass drawn upside down or with a crack is a home-made variant, not the ISO symbol; it means the same thing.
What it does not promise
It does not promise careful handling — the ISO standard itself says the symbols give no guarantee of satisfactory handling and that protective packaging comes first. It does not promise the carrier pays for breakage either: that depends on the service you bought and its terms, not on the sticker.
A mark on a parcel is the sender’s statement about what is inside and how it should be handled. It is not a certificate that the parcel is packed safely, that anyone handled it as marked, or that your carrier accepts it: for what you may send, read the carrier’s own terms.
- What it looks like
- A black stemmed wine glass, drawn upright. Sometimes with a crack; the ISO symbol is the plain glass.
- Standard
- ISO 780:2015, symbol No. 3 — Fragile, handle with care (ISO 7000-0621)
- ISO 7000 registration
- ISO 7000-0621
- Kind of mark
- A handling symbol from ISO 780, the international standard for handling marks on distribution packages. ISO 780 marks are always black; they say how to handle the package, never that its contents are dangerous.
- Also called
- Fragile; Handle with care; Glass symbol; Broken glass
Related
Sources
Each document was fetched and read on the date shown. Written in our own words; quotations are the documents’ wording.
- Symbol list — IBJ / bravecroc (graphical-symbol file vendor): ISO 780 EN Symbols (2015-12): the 17 ISO 780:2015 symbols with their numbers and titles — Lists ISO 780 symbol No. 3, “FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE”, with a reference drawing, in the 2015 numbering. Checked 2026-09-27.
- Standard (preview pages) — ISO (preview pages published by iTeh Standards): ISO 780:1997 Packaging — Pictorial marking for handling of goods, 4th edition (preview: clause 2 and part of Table 1) — Table 1 No. 1 FRAGILE, ISO 7000 No. 0621: contents of the package are fragile and shall be handled with care; clause 2.4.1 a): near the left-hand upper corner of all four upright sides. Checked 2026-09-27.
- Standard (preview pages) — ISO (preview pages published by iTeh Standards): ISO 780:2015 Packaging — Distribution packaging — Graphical symbols for handling and storage of packages, 5th edition 2015-12-01 (preview: foreword to Table 1) — Foreword: the 17 symbols of the 2015 edition; clause 3.3: symbols are black, never red, orange or yellow (to avoid confusion with dangerous-goods labels); 3.4: normally 100, 150 or 200 mm tall; 3.5 and 3.6: how many and where are fixed for symbols No. 1, 2, 3, 8 and 13; the introduction: “The use of graphical symbols does not provide any guarantee of satisfactory handling”. Checked 2026-09-27.