Well, I thought I have seen it all. Packing in cardboard press and stick, multiple layers of bubble wrap, loose in envelopes, envelopes in boxes, you name it. Today I got a shipment in your standard bubble wrap envelope, but when I opened the envelope I found this . . . . . So, what's the most "unusual" packaging you've received a coin in? Z
I don't have a pic of it, but my coin came in a cardboard beluga caviar container with Russian writing on it. Yes weird, but coin was in perfect condition.
@jwitten , you hath been summoned~! I don't want to steal your glory by telling your story. I'm pretty sure you can win this thread.
I had a letter arrive from a swap here on CT in this. The envelope inside was slit open but (luckily) the coins were still there. If the coins weren't wrapped up in paper, they would've been lost forever
I had a shipment from Russia where they took a paperback book and carved out holes in it to place the coins.
That is what I do, carve a hole in a book and place well packed coins in that hole in the book. A trick I picked up from trading coins with a collector in... Russia. They know the Russian post office and well, the US Post Office cannot always be trusted. My most recent purchases from Russia have been HO scale model house kits for my model train. Even they come cleverly packaged to defeat potential theft. One type of item I have never successfully mailed over there though is clothing, sending clothing to relatives there has resulted in disappeared packages the contents of which probably ended up for sale in some flea market or bazaar there.
The 2009 coins from Belarus were struck in 2008, dated 2009, and first released in 2016. I ordered at set from a source in Belarus shortly after the release. They arrived hidden in a pouch and labeled as a key chain on the import document. Apparently there are laws forbidding the export of coins out of Belarus. I still have the coins and the "key chain". Certainly the most interesting packaging I ever got.
India forbids the export of currency - so I have gotten currency from India enclosed in books with a note from the seller that was how they had to send to avoid it being confiscated.
As it worked out, I am pretty happy the seller sent it as he did. I was concerned about it arriving in one piece. What I bought is a German Porcelain "Notgeld" token / medal. Being porcelain, I am happy the seller chose a "case" to ship it in. Here is a better photo of the "coin" . . . . There are some "interesting" translations on this piece. Issued in 1922, it falls squarely between WWI and WWII. The front says, "25 Years of Homeland Protection" and Professor Oskar Seyffert's name. The reverse bears the inscriptions, "State Museum" and "For Saxon Folk Art." Interesting piece. Z
media mail is also dirt cheap cost in any country, they might check to make sure it's media, like a book, but then immediately move on. it's really genius to send stuff between countries cheaply and it not get stolen, however, it's not insured or anything so if it's gone for some reason, it's just gone.