Post Office does not believe coins are "real" collectables

That is correct

 

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That would be great! i have shared with my wife your e mails and I would really love getting the coins back. Thank You! DC

 

You go out and find a old house that is falling apart. Underneath the front porch you find with a metal detector a nice 1793 Chain cent. You pay extra to ship it to get it graded. The Post office loses it. Would you settle for one cent? You found the house, you bought the metal detector, you drove there. I have spent years learning about coins. I bought books, paid for Newspapers, drove to coin shows over decades, spent my time looking through rolls of coins. Some of the coins I bought in the 90's. Some were lucky finds of course. I spent good money to insure them. If you bought a MS66 1880S Morgan years ago and the Post Office lost it would you settle for $30 in silver? That is what the Post Office is asking me. Settle for collectable coins as if they were circulated common silver. Would you? My Post Master at the main Post Office said that once they lost a Rolex.. a commonly produced watch, to show off your wealth, hawked by celebrities that do nothing for anyone but themselves was paid for now that is something that should have been replaced by the new amount of precious metal in it..

 

I think you should hire a lawyer and sue the post office. They should pay the value of claim.

 

Call me old fashioned but, if you insure something for a certain amount, and something happens, you should be imbursed exactly what you claimed. If I insure Elvis glasses for $1 mill, and you take my money and lose the glasses...you owe me 1 mill !!!
Ive had $500 worth of full date buffalo nickels "lost" in the mail last year.
Tracking said it was delivered...it wasnt. Day after I filed a claim I had a new postman. No refund..nothing! My word against the PO.
I seriously thought about going postal !!

 

Contact the Postal Police !! Let them know that theres shenanigans afoot. Whoever did this was not stupid and probably does this often. Let me take a shot in the dark and say NGC was the company?
It took NGC a month and a half to return my coins last submission. They always screw up my coins!

 

sometimes post office or ups or fedex will leave the package at the door. last year? someone bought thousands of dollars of coins from heritage, and it was lost, i think heritage gave money back to buyer.

 

Long story short...bought a SCD, graded by NGC, for $600. Distance between seller and I, maybe 200 mi. Sent Priority Mail, sig confirm, ins for the full amount. It got to my city, went out for delivery, then NADA! Tracking info show 'signed for' at 9:00pm...9:00PM!! A postal employee signed for it, actually signing her real name (now no longer with the USPS). I filed, was denied in a day, due to there being a signature on file. The original claim is checked for status by a computer. The computer simply checks for 'delivered' status, and time stamped for del confirm; it checks for ANY signature and time stamp, for signature confirm. It saw a signature on mine, and the computer was satisfied...DENIED. Appealed it, spoke with actual humans...simply provided my Paypal transaction, and had my full amount inside 30 days (Paypal denied it also, due to a signature showing up, but thats another story). ALWAYS appeal a USPS denial, but you need to have your proof. If you do your homework, they are going to 'give it up' and pay it off.

That said, it was a graded coin. For raw coins, I get very nervous, myself, when sending them to a TPG, as there is no real grade assigned. When you write the value of the coin on the submission form (say MS65 value, series is unimportant for this hypothetical situation), you think it's going to be insured for the cost of an MS65. The OP set value at $3,994, and thought he was entitled to that amount. Wrong (no offense intended....just fact). Even if you KNOW a coin would be a solid 65, or even better (and Type B's, depending on year/grade are worth mega times their non-Type B counterparts), it doesn't matter...it's not graded, you would only be able to support the claim by producing sales for raw examples...though if you have receipts, they are supposed to use those, and nothing else.

Where the OP picked them over time, I'm sure he doesn't have every receipt, so he's really kinda sunk, as they'd consider ALL sales of those years, even non-variety sales (bringing the value right down, as raw, the USPS will actually look...they don't want to pay off ANY claim). Now, if they had been graded and lost on the way BACK to you, you didn't buy them, so you CAN pull up price guides...but they know a price guide is high, so they ASK for recent sales of the coin (grab TT and Heritage and ebay...supply the highest ones ALWAYS) and they average it out, and pay you that way. If a package is lost, all you can supply are receipts for what you bought them for, whether raw or graded. Raw are tough to collect on, while graded are not so tough to be made whole on, should it get lost. I got alot of valuable info from the P.O. during my appeal....VERY valuable.

I feel for you, as I, myself, am an avid collector of the '56-'64 Type B, and '64-D Type C...the '69-'72 Type B, still searching. But...I've submitted a bunch, and have been lucky with making '56's in MS65 and '58's in MS66, and 3 MS64 (a few MS63's) '64-D Type C's. If THOSE got lost on their way to PCGS, and they paid off piddly amounts, I would be in D.C. at the Postmaster General's office, though, it would more than likely be moot. They have a hard line in the sand drawn. I can't say I'd be happy to see the Type B pops jump by 68 (again, no offense), but I do hope that package eventually shows up.

 

I forgot to add in my previous post....Registered is supposed to be the safest way, and usually is the best way to ship something of real value, such as the OP's submission. But, a lesson I did learn from speaking with literally 8 different people during my appeal.....two simple words....Express Mail. If it's that important that it GETS there, it is worth the extra $$. If the OP had sent it Express, hypothetically, it would have gotten there before Priority, and WAY before Registered...but chances of losing Express is very slim.

Though, I use Priority flat rate boxes myself (never a problem with the flat rate box), non flat-rate packages are just as susceptible to mis-treatment as first class packages.

When shipping coins, whether raw or graded, to an ebay customer, or a submission to PCGS/NGC...they should only go Registered, Express, or, at the very minimum, Flat-rate Priority BOXES.....

Again, I hope it's one of those stories that ends with the package magically showing up in 6 months, with a 'you wouldn't believe...' story behind it.

 

Perhaps you need to point the Post Office to their own web page:

http://pe.usps.gov/text/dmm300/609.htm#1097188

Where it specifically states:

"4.0 Claims [h=3]4.1 Payable Claim[/h]Insurance for loss or damage to insured, registered, or COD mail within the amount covered by the fee paid or within the indemnity limits for Express Mail as explained in 4.2 is payable for the following:
a. Actual value of lost articles at the time and place of mailing (see 4.1n. for bulk insured articles).
b. Cost of repairing a damaged article or replacing a totally damaged article not exceeding actual value of the article at the time of mailing.
c. Remittance due on a COD parcel not received by the sender, subject to the limitations set by the standards for COD service.
d. Reasonable costs incurred duplicating documents such as:
1. Copying service.
2. Notary fees.
3. Bonding fees for replacement of stock or bond certificates.
4. Reasonable attorney’s fees if required to replace the lost or damaged documents.
5. Other direct and necessary expense or cost, as determined by the USPS.
6. Face value of negotiable documents that cannot be reconstructed up to the amount of insurance coverage bought, but not to exceed the $25,000 maximum amount of insurance coverage available if sent by Registered Mail.
e. Extra cost of gift wrapping, if the gift-wrapped article was enclosed in another container when mailed.
f. Cost of outer container, if designed and constructed for the article sent.
g. Fair market value of stamps and coins of philatelic or numismatic value, as determined by a recognized stamp or coin dealer or current coin and stamp collectors newsletters and trade papers.
h. Federal, state, or city sales tax paid on articles lost or totally damaged.
i. Postage (not fee) paid for sending damaged articles for repair. (The USPS must be used for this purpose. Other reasonable transportation charges may be included if the USPS is not available.)
j. Cost of film stock or blank tape for photographic film, negatives, slides, transparencies, videotapes, laser disks, x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) prints, computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan prints, etc.
k. Cost of bees, crickets, or baby poultry destroyed by physical damage to the package or delay for which the USPS is responsible. (In the absence of definite evidence showing responsibility for death of these insects or animals, the USPS is presumed to be at fault if 10% or more are dead on delivery, and pays indemnity for all dead bees, crickets, or poultry; if less than 10%, the USPS is not presumed to be at fault.)
l. Cost of filing a lost ticket report with the airline.
m. Per page copying cost of lost or damaged blueprints, schematics, etc.
n. For bulk insured articles, indemnity is provided for the lesser of (1) the actual value of the article at the time of mailing or (2) the wholesale cost of the contents to the sender.
o. Except for Registered Mail, the maximum indemnity for negotiable items (defined as instruments that can be converted to cash without resort to forgery), currency, or bullion, is $15.00."

 

NOT with Registered. Insured or not ALL registered mail must be signed for by the recipient. If the parcel is picked up at the Post Office, proper identification MUST be presented before the Registered package is released to the signer.

 

Wow, all of you have helped me a great deal. Darrow

 

Do you have photos of the coins that you can use to photo grade the coins and obtain a third party "expert" appraisal. That and a copy of their guide lines would seem to be indisputable.

 

I have a take on this situation and all insurance for that matter. In a situation where there is a total loss, the insured amount IS the loss, regardless of value. The premium is based on a value WE put on the item, not a third party. If they don't want to PAY that amount, then they shouldn't collect a premium based on that amount.

Damage is a different situation, There you simply need to be made whole. In my case, I had insurance with a premium based on REPLACEMENT. The insurance company paid half because I chose to use the insurance to cover deductibles rather than replace some insured items I lost. This is unacceptable to me.

If I choose to send an empty box and they ACCEPT a premium to insure it, then they should pay the insured amount if they lose that box.

 

Unless you had permission or owned the property, you will probably have ownership problems on the 1793 Chain.

 

I totally disagree- they stole his coins and will not make right on it.

 

Im sure most of us learned this lesson the hard way in the past. Maybe not this hard..but hard nonetheless.

 

Exactly correct. If they take in $, they have to be prepared to pay it out. Oversimplified, I know, but I think he should sue as well.

 

With a little imagination you can create a scenario where a postal employee, in cahoots with a shipper, "loses" the package intentionally. It was a box of rocks insured for $50,000. This is a scam the PO can't tolerate. There needs to be reasonable certainty that the insured article is actually worth its insured value in order to avoid abuse.

OTOH, I don't know what stops someone from producing solid documentation of a valuable item, but one that was not actually shipped. Receipts for other expensive coin(s) in one's collection, let's say. How would the PO know?
Lance.

 

I would imagine that you can find a lawyer that will file suit.

You might be able to do this in small claims court - the maximum value is different from state to state - you might even be able to file in small claims court.