Have you seen me?? I've been stolen.

Nathan, so sorry to hear of this loss. From the photo of the damaged package it looks as if the lower left hand corner got caught in a machine and tore it open. I see it was mailed from the west coast so damaged could have happened from that point until it reached you.
The Postal Service placed that sticker on the package, made the notations, and then placed it in the body bag. Most Postal facilities do not heat seal so taping them is common practice.
I do not have all of the facts but you stated it was "cut" but in the photos it appears to be torn as a cut would be a straight line.
Your local office would be useless. They probably place the and marked the damaged label then put it in the damaged bag. As far as they are concerned they did their job. I do not understand the "?" on the damaged label next to received without contents. If an invoice was inside that may explain it.
I'm not making excuses for them but I'm trying to give you an idea of what may have occurred.
My best advice would be to talk to and show the package to your mail carrier. They maybe able to give you more information about this package. Since a tracking number is present and readable I would call your local district office and report the damage and loss. Please, do not make any accusations as I know how Postal employees think. Calling 1-800-ask-usps will only send it to the local office. What you need is the district office. I have been very successful in having my district find the owner of items lost, presumably stolen, when it was damaged and is in the processing plant.
Best wishes and glad to hear the seller and you were able to find a way to work together on this unfortunate problem.

 

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man that really sucks but like others mentioned, looks like it was torn open....

I've had this happen before but luckily nothing was lost

 

Watch it come up for sale.on eBay in a couple weeks.

 

I have had strange things happen when coins have been mailed to me. Once I ordered a coin from a seller in Sweden. The coin was the size of a USA quarter and the seller just put it loose in an ordinary white envelope with no protection at all, not even a flip. When I received the letter one end was badly torn and by some miracle the loose coin was still in it. If that coin had fallen out I might have thought that it was stolen.

 

I had 2 Morgan dollars I shipped never show up at the destination. That sucks sorry to hear

 

The mail sorting machines are manned, cleaned and maintained on an ongoing basis. Even if that Morgan got torn out by the machine, it would be found in short time. Once recovered the item should go into the damaged package bin and be entered into the system. Then when a damaged package report is filed the item will be cross referenced by the computer with what is in their damaged package inventory. This notion that items get accidentally torn out of their package and "lost" forever is just a way to justify theft by postal workers.

 

It's also important for the shipper to package the coin to help avoid it from "falling" out of the shipping envelope. One way I like is to sandwich the coin in cardboard that is almost the same size as the envelope, that way the coin has less chance of falling out of a tear. I've seen some shippers even tape the sandwiched cardboard to the inside of the envelope.

 

I'd also go on USPS.com and file a lost item report. I once had an item lost that apparently fell out of a broken box and I filled one of those reports out and to my surprise a few months later the P.O. actually delivered the item to me with a note that it had been found based on my description and recovered from lost property. May not be found but it's worth a shot anyway for you or the seller to fill a report out.