Best way to ship securely and insured

All,

Consider this part two of my journey... I MAY consider starting up the old eBay shop, but I cannot and will not ship USPS registered mail.

There needs to be a better way to ship coins while insuring them at the same time.

At the time, I was using Ship Saver insurance via eBay, but I have been out of the game for a while and looking for expert opinions.

Coin values could range from $5 to $10,000. Going to the post office absolutely sucked the life out of my soul with coin selling. I refuse to do that again.

edit: interesting, it looks like you can insure coins via Priority mail, but it needs to be considered as "numismatic collectibles"

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

On second look, it seems getting a private insurance policy through Hugh Wood is the only way to go.... I may do that.

 

Priority mail flat rate boxes work the best for me. You can get them for free sent to your house or at post office. Insurance is provided up to 5o bucks. And they can even pick them up if you schedule a time. You can also load them up pretty heavy and still pay same rate.

 

You can but maximum coverage is $5,000 and it is a lot more expensive than Registered once you get over $1K. Not as safe either. (Registered coverage goes up to $25K.)

Not sure about Hugh Wood, but with other private insurers such as "ship and insure" their rates vary depending on what carrier you use. And their rates are lowest by far for Registered Mail. Even the private companies recognize that Registered is the safest way to ship.

You wind up doing a trade off. Slow, safe, and cheap, of fast, riskier. and more costly.

 

Interesting... I like the idea of Ship and Insure because I can ship faster and wouldn't require paper taping every single box.

After reading, I think I will use Ship and Insure. Rates are very fair. Insurance will only cost a few bucks and I will be able to use USPS Priority to make shipping fast and easy for both me and the buyer.

$135 bucks for NACA membership, but I guess you will make that up in time and cheap insurance.

 

Also consider another option that was pointed out to me.

Self insurance.

For every dollar that you spend on insuring your packages through USPS, set that money aside in a separate jar, account, or place.

That way you aren't giving your money away to someone else, you will eventually reach a point that you have excess of anything that you will ever ship and then you can use that extra money to buy more coins to sell for a profit.

When you 'issue a claim' just start refilling your pot until you reach your safe number and then go back to spending that excess on coins once you pass that mark again.

The rate of you issuing claims should be 1:25 or even better than that.

My plan would be to self insure under $500, and registered over that as my first platform. Then when I have that $500 covered in cash set aside, bump it up to $1000 self insured and registered mail for anything over that.

By that threshold the buyer and the seller BOTH usually want to ensure proper delivery and the cost can often be split among parties at anything over $1000 per coin.

 

I hear you on it, but this operation is running under the belief of speed.

I want to be able to be at my house with 20 flat rate priority boxes, bubble wrap, labels, and tape when the auction ends. Print out 20 labels and put 20 coins in 20 boxes and be done with it.

I use to consistently sell over $1,000 coins so I would use Registered Mail and it was horrible. I would spend anywhere from 1-2 hours in the post office, paper taping, waiting in line, the employee would have to stamp every piece of the box, etc.

Your method of self-insuring to me is like health insurance plans: High Deductible vs PPO.... save the premiums and pray that lightning doesn't strike twice.

 

Ship and Insure does seem to be a good option.

Anyway I figure it, it would take about 350 items sent from me to pay for it to be viable for me to self insure. And thats without calculating a loss or a claim in between that. Over that threshold and a nice combination would work between self insuring and using S&I.

 

So it looks like the priority small flat rate box and or flat rate envelope would be the best method with Sig. Confirmation.

 

Yes sir, Priority flat rate box with Sig Confirmation would be my shipping method.

$135 bucks to sign up for S&I tho.... rough upfront fees.

 

not really, I spent that trying to mail coins for photos a few weeks ago, or about $80 anyway, one way. I still have to pay for the return of those coins too.

I will certainly be using S&I, so glad this thread was brought up. I was going to inquire with Hugh Wood, but this seems a little better for an easy entry into shipping economically.

 

This is a game changer for me....and you are right $135 bucks is not bad at all.

 

It certainly just made my life a bit easier!

 

Compared to some of you folks, I ship items which are not very pricey. Usually coins valued for less than $75.00 each. Priority Mail works for me, at $5.75 its tracked and insured to $50.00 free, I read (I think) it has a $5,000 dollar limit, which again works for me.
One clever fellow in Canada, mailed to me (in America) a nice Tibet coin, it came in an 11 x 9 inch brown envelope, with a media-mail type postage (cheap). In it was some magazine about target shooting, about 80 pages. Hidden and taped within the bowels of this useless magazine was the coin I purchased. No one would have suspected that it contained anything valuable, the coin was not detectable, the "package" appeared to simply be a magazine. Of course this is not too practical if you have 15 or so mailings, unless you have a lot of old magazines. Media mail is very cheap, I suppose signature confirmation can be added, and tracking: insurance is out of the question -- but was/is it needed, in this case? Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed reading this.
Gary

 

The problem I would have with media mail is the post office has the right to open and inspect any packages sent via that method. Do you want some unnamed / unsupervised postal employee pawing through your packages with coins in them?

 

It's the small priority flat rate box for me.Helps protect your item,low cost and anything insured for $300 + requires a signature.Much faster than registered mail.

 

Drathbun:
"....the post office has the right to open and inspect any packages sent via that method. Do you want some unnamed / unsupervised postal employee pawing through your packages with coins in them?"

Good point, but then again the odds of provoking some postal employee to flip through a magazine on "Target Shooters of the UK" seems somewhat remote. Perhaps some other type of trashy mags may attract them. I often write on my little bubble wrap envelopes, "PHOTOS: Do Not Bend". The postage for each envelope costs about $1.93 (EBAY) to $2.32 USPS, due to the fact that they are rigid. I add cardboard. Additionally, I have also cut out square 2x2 openings in one piece of cardboard and then insert/fit the the 2x2 into it, and then add a plain piece of cardboard on top of the 2x2, forming a "wallet", and after putting it into a small bubble wrap with the PHOTO warning, with tracking, I have never yet had any problems. However if I were to ship a $250.00 coin, it would definitely go PRIORITY MAIL.
Gary

 

One thing I don't like about priority mail is the clause it states that coins and bullion insurance payout is $15.00. I have read horror stories of someone insuring a proof gold buffalo and getting $15. I can tell you not having insurance with the post office is risky. They lost a package with a lower grade 1920-D Walker, now I am out the money and the coin. Now I only sell coins under $10 and maybe won't be doing that soon since someone just opened a case for a Mercury dime I sold for $4. 2 other people said they didn't receive their Barber quarter and low grade seated dime. I don't provide tracking so I am out of luck. It is a risk to sell without tracking, but a low one with low cost coins. Fortunately most people wouldn't allow their conscious to bug them over $4 and try to get it for free. I would never claim I didn't get something that I did for any reason. Even if they taped the coins to a piece of paper and they were the wrong ones. I would just get ticked off and let the seller know about it.

 

Hence Hugh Wood or Ship and Insure private insurance policy... No need for USPS policy run around.

 

I was worried about that too, USPS insurance run around. I will have to take a look at those.