A word of advice

I received a slabbed coin in the mail today. It was a PCGS OGH. The seller apparently tried to save a few cents and sent it in a plain white envelope inside one of those cardboard sticky sealers, but he did insure it. Can anyone picture what happens to a hard plastic holder goes through an automatic canceling machine? It did. The slab is now in pieces. At the seller's suggestion, I took it to the post office to file a claim, although I was pretty sure what would happen.

After going through the clerk, his boss and the next boss, the claim was denied because it was improperly packaged. I have yet to get a good definition of what is required to be properly packaged. The clerk said 2 inches - YEA RIGHT. They do not believe that a padded envelope would be enough. Somehow, I think that if they accepted it for insurance, they should have to pay, but they say otherwise. However, the big boss did suggest that I return it and that the post office of origin might pay the claim.

I am not sure just exactly what end result of this is except to say if you are mailing slabs, or even raw coins, you had better use some insulation.

 

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It's worth considering how some dealers mail slabbed coins. I've receive them this way from Heritage and from J.B. Hamrick. The slab was in the sticky corrugated cardboard. The cardboard was inside a small cardboard box. The small cardboard box was then put into a large Fedex box. (the ones that are about 18" long and 12" wide.

This might be overkill, but both coins arrived safely. I presume Heritage does it this way for a reason.

I always send coins in some kind of a box with enough padding (bubble wrap or foam peanuts) to keep things from banging around inside.

 

This is where so many post offices differ in the first place.
Honestly, I don't think most of them even know their own rules.

The ones around here won't even insure a regular envelope. I've also had them tell me they won't insure a coin unless it's been appraised by a professional. Doesn't matter what it may have fetched on ebay.

I'm never too thrilled with the USPS.

 

I stand in line and have them hand cancel it, but I also do a little more than place it in a white envelope.

 

I ship slabbers between 2 handcut sheets of cardboard, the stiff kind, then into a padded bubble mailer.

The non insurance on coins freaks me out !! Never heard that.

 

Most haven't but a few of us have had that problem. Was in contact with a couple from Iowa about this years ago. We dug deep into postal policies. I even printed them and brought them in just to have postmasters tell me they would not insure coins.

This is why I say they don't even know their own rules.

You've seen how I ship a cheap coin cheap Jack. Anything of higher value costs a lot more. Gotta cover my own butt on those.

Maybe it's the water around here?

 

It had nothing to do with it being coins. It could have been anything, but for the insurance to cover it, it has to be properly packed. Problem I have is I do not know for sure what that means.

 

I know what you mean. I got this slab in the mail a couple of days ago. It was mailed in a thin foam pad inside a manila envelope. The slab is completely smashed and the coin is missing. The coin was a 1905 NGC MS-65 Red Indian Head Cent.

 

Do you mean missing from the slab or not even in the envelope?

 

Well, the truth is that it was mailed that way. I am having an Indian Head Cent Grading Set put together for me and the top coin is the 1905 MS-65 Red. All the coins will be put in a holder side-by-side so this one had to be cracked out. I asked the guy putting the set together for me to mail me the holder and label for future reference.

So, no - it was not damaged in the mail.

 

Like a hilo running over it perhaps? : )

 

Anything over a certain thickness ( I believe it's 1/4 inch) is NOT supposed to be sent through those automatic sorting/cancelling machines. The post office has a template with slots in it to check for just that. If I were you, I'd write to the Postmaster General.

 

By their own admission, it is the canceling machine. Everything is hand sorted as to whether rf not it goes through the machine. If it goes through the machine, this is the LIKELY result. If the sorter happens to see that it is thick, oversized or otherwise should not got through the machine, it come out fine. However, this is a manual operation by a human. To ere is human! This is the second one I have had smashed. The other was in a padded envelope, but it was a white envelope. Apparently, the sorted never saw it.

 

rlm's, I'm not sure what happened to your slab but I would rule out the canceling machine. The canceler will only accept certain envelopes, there is a height, length, withes and weight requirement before the envelopes go thru the canceler. The hole unite is about the size of a small house and it does a go job of separating the mail. Also the envelop has to be flexible before it goes into the feed chamber of the canceler. Hard items like slabs could damage the machine causing delays all along the plant and then to the Post Offices.

Lou

 

Doug is wright, I've been working for USPS going on 32 years. I've worked in the P & DC (processing and distribution plants) plants all of my career. The plants are like factories located all over the USA. Presently I'm involved in training, safety, quality control and new employee orientations. Just this week I trained an employee on the AFC, advance facer canceler.

Lou

 

this was in a standard 9 X 4 envelope and was completely flexible - except for the slab. Since it was an old green holder surrounded by pretty much crushed cardboard, I doubt that it was over 1/4 inch thick. It only took 58¢ postage, so it weighed less than 2 ounces. The other one was in a tyvec 8x5 padded envelop and you could see the drive gears results on the envelope. An ex-operator of the machine informed me what had happened.

However, regardless of the cause of the breakage, the purpose of this thread was to warn people that they need to pack well or have the insurance claim denied.

 

While we're on the subject, I wanted to share an important lesson I learned. A few months ago, I purchased a high-grade 1955 DDO. The seller sent it by USPS Priority Mail with insurance and delivery confirmation. It never arrived. We learned that priority mail, even with delivery confirmation doesn't provide any tracking information in between the time you mail it at the post office and the time it is delivered. The post office couldn't even tell me whether it had left the originating post office for sure. They wouldn't bother looking for it until the insurance claim was filed which required a wait of 30 days.

Fedex and UPS provide step-by-step information of every destination along the way and also give you an estimated delivery time. Registered mail may provide more information, but I'm not sure.

(In case you're wondering, the seller was very gracious about it and actually sent me a replacement coin on approval without paying additional money and took on the risk of collecting the insurance settlement on his own. I checked with ebay and he was under no obligation to do that. The original coin was never found)

Lesson learned: don't use USPS Priority Mail even with delivery confirmation and insurance for valuable coins.

 

In accordance with The FedEx Service Terms and Conditions, you may not ship collectible coins via their service.

As well, the UPS Tariffs/Terms And Conditions also make it clear that coins, even bullion, are restricted from shipment with their service.

Even DHL has a prohibition on bullion and currency (no mention of "coins", but they may be "inferring" them under currency).

So you really do not have a choice in carrier. The USPS is the only large courier that does not prohibit the transportation of coins. There will be the argument that people ship coins through UPS and FedEx all the time, but the plain fact is they are legally indemnified against any loss of prohibited items, even IF they accept a package declared to be such. It is ship at your own risk with UPS and FedEx. If they "lose" that $10,000 coin that you paid declared value for, they do have the contractual right to refuse your claim because the item was a prohibited item.