So....your coin was lost in the mail ?

And I was specifically talking about incidences where the USPS screws it up and I had never said that there couldn't be other causes. I'm not suggesting they intentionally damage them, but there does seem to be a lot of negligent mishandling of packages that goes on with the USPS. At my place of business, we have far more packages delivered to us via UPS or Fedex, but the USPS wins hands down for the number of damaged packages that we receive.

 

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Ok, lets put it this way.....The coins are physically located at a USPS owned facility. They are picked up by the winning bidder at the same facility. If the auction itself has been contracted out to a third party(the 5% buyers premium) then so be it. Geezus, life's too short for this.

 

I don't own it anymore, sold it in 2011, but I had a sporting goods store with a complete bait shop and shooting sports. It didn't matter who the carriers were. I got heavily shipping damaged stock on a weekly basis. Most was damaged by the loader. You would think common sence would tell you not to put a diesel engine on top of a pallet of catfish dip bait, what a mess. Or a barrel of industrial paint on top of a pallet of shotgun shells another big mess. Even got a load of foam coolers and minnow buckets in that they had stacked pallets of rock salt on top of. Fragile means bottom.

 

What are the prices usually like at these auctions? Can you get pretty good deals? I mean 300 silver eagles is ALOT of dough on silver.

 

If you're asking specifically about coins and bullion, it was much better when they used to do the auctions live at the Recovery Center. There would be maybe 150 to 200 buyers there, and most were interested in the other merchandise. Now since it's on a online format, there's many more bidders and the prices have gone up considerably on everything.

I always focused on the general merchandise lots. A couple years ago you scoop one up from 750.00 to 1000.00 and there was no buyers premium. Each lot would average about 1500.00 in profit after everything was said and done - eBay fee's, PayPal, etc...

The coin and bullion buyers must make a nice profit as they tend to bid really high. I've seen some coin and bullion lots go as high as 70,000.00 with the buyer still grinning ear to ear.

 

With all due respect to the OP, I still maintain that ALL U.S. government agencies must use a .gov address. Look at all the trouble Hillary Clinton is in for using her own private server for her emails when she knew she was supposed to use a government server. (Not a political statement, just a fact) In the case of coins I believe it should incumbent upon the USPS to list all items lost/damaged and held by them to be posted separately so that any owners could prove their ownership just in case they did insure these items and were denied payout for whatever silly reason the USPS refuses to do so. This HAS happened, I know personally. Some dealers have private insurance and could also recover their losses this way, as would the insurers. I can't tell you how many times I have stamped my packages fragile or do not bend, just to watch an USPS employee toss or try to bend the package right in front of me. What you see in the photos is only one reason and proof of why the USPS is 13 billion $ in the red. The only business I am aware of that the government is involved in with recovered property is that which is recovered in drug busts and homes and land that were not paid for under various programs like HUD administers. This is a liquidator who has bid on various government foul ups.

 

http://faq.usps.com/

How Does the USPS® Dispose of Items of Value if the Owner Cannot Be Located
Occasionally, the MRC will auction off the items held. More information on upcoming auctions, including locations and directions, can be found at United States Postal Service auctions. Auctions usually start at 10:00 AM with the viewing of the available merchandise beginning at 8:30 AM. Merchandise is sold in lots, not by individual item, and catalogs may be purchased for a nominal fee on the day of the auction.

This directly from the USPS web site - you can verify by the link I provided. The only thing thats changed is instead of viewing and bidding in person, they hired a company to manage their auction for them via the internet.

 

That's odd, but obviously the USPS is linking directly to the site you originally posted. I wonder where the profits go?

 

to the man