Solid-state processing of polymer powders through compaction and sintering has potential advantages over conventional polymer processing methods; however, pressureless sintering of compacted polymer powders has often been unsuccessful, Room temperature compaction of polycarbonate (PC) powder was studied in an effort to better understand the fundamental mechanisms that control polymer compaction and sintering. It was found that differences in the degree of physical aging affect the compaction behavior of PC powder. The results presented in this paper show that the degree of physical aging of thermoplastic polymer powders, which can be influenced by commonly used powder handling operations such as drying and long term storage, can ultimately affect the ability of the powder to be successfully compacted at room temperature.