How do you guys mail/ship coins?

I've had no experience in either receiving or sending coins through the mail so I have no idea.

What type of containers or envelopes do you use for individual coins or bulk orders?

Also what are the normal shipping prices you've experienced?

 

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I ship my coins in 4 x 6 inch padded envelopes. They are lined with bubble wrap on the inside. I think they make a perfect little protective package for the coin. I'll then usually enclose the coin in a flip or 2x2 and wrap the invoice around it for extra protection.

You can buy these padded envelopes at most drug stores. If you want to save $, buy them at Walmart, they cost almost a dollar each at my local Rite Aid, but Walmart sells packages of 10 for $3.50.

 

does any one have much experience shipping between the uk and usa?

 

When I started selling I bought a box of 1000 of the above mentioned OOO envelopes, sold 1/2 of them on ebay in lots of 100 so mine were free. I buy slabbed coins on teletrade which come in the corregated stick together thingies, which I save and reuse, free again. If I sell currency I put the notes in the plastic holders obtained for 10 cents apiece and sandwich it between 2 pieces of (free) cardboard salvaged from various sources. So I can ship like a pro and my costs are minimal, I do use delivery confirmation for anything over a couple of bucks and insure above $50.

 

I buy 6x9 bubble mailers from Sams club(only because they don't sell the smaller ones) and they are only like $6 for 25 . I fold the mailer in half and then tape around all four sides, just in case a side splits. I try to buy all my postage through ebay, or through paypal if not an ebay transaction.

 

I ship mine enclosed in folded poster board in a 9x14 padded poly mailer. I use the very large envelope so it is less likely to be lost or thought to contain a coin. I get them bulk on eBay and my cost for them is 26c each when the shipping is added. No problems so far, but I did have problems with loss of the small 4x6 envelopes.

 

I bubble wrap the absolute **** out of coins I send.

I place the coin in saflip and wrap in bubble wrap. The place the coin in a bubble wrap envelope.

Receivers are happy as they see I care about their coins

 

What is the procedure for postage purchased thru ebay or pp? My little (and I mean little) town does not have mail delivery so I have to go to the PO every day anyway so I just throw my stuff on the counter and they do the work but if I could save some money....... Do I need to buy a postal scale?

 

Shipping coins

I would concur with coins under $150 in value re: the previous posts.

If you are shipping gold or other valuable coins, many dealers ship registered/insured, but I could never find a local source for the gummy brown tape necessary to do this. Plus, registered/insured parcels tend to be really slow. If you ship "a box in a box" and have a private insurance carrier like Ship and Insure, you will have happier customers than those who have to wait for the registered/insured to arrive. I overnight most valuable coins this way. The liklihood of theft is a lot less when a delivery is extremely urgent.

 

I've been shipping between Canada and the UK.

 

Thanks everyone. So it's best to never use a standard envelope?

 

I would not use a standard envelope for anything of value. If you have a coin really inexpensive raw coin and use a safe-t-mailer, maybe-if you use heavy tape. but you are taking chances.

For raw coins use safe-t-mailer inside a jiffylite(bubble wrap) envelope. For slabbed just the jiffylite.

 

Your coins are well packaged! I recently bought a pcgs ms65 steel cent from you off the bay, and it arrived expertly packed just as you described. I wish you could teach your methods to Heritage whom it seems has chimps packaging their coins for shipment.

 

Have you had good results? Also how long on average does it take? Thanks

 

Go to Sams Club and you can easily purchased a 6X9 padded bubble envelope under $ 6.00 of 25 to mail the coin always attached the confirmation tracking number and you can ask this to the clerk of POST Office or just get one on their location at display location shelf. The average cost to mail it in US is about more or less is $ 2.25 US$ depends on the weigh per oz.

 

PART II
The way I put the coin slab or coin airtite holder into envelope I always make sure the coin will not move a lot. So I will tape it to the invoce or a piece of another plastic bubble wrapped and put inside on a sandwich plastic bag or Ziploc. Then ready to mail. One thing more make it sure that your receipt from post office is the same ZIP CODE on your mailing envelope sometimes clerk make a mistake on a zip code.

 

I buy a huge roll of the brown reinforced tape at staples. I live on the atlantic ocean and the humidity made a lump out of the first roll, bought another and store it in a zip lock. I send stuff in for grading registered and tape the entire box, I cut the strips to length dry, run them over a wet sponge to moisten and wrap the package. My po guy is quite "anal" and loves my packaging. Registered takes around 5 days po to po.

 

I primarily use the padded envelope like the others. I always use 2x2's or flips and, if the coin is nice/valuable, I'll tape cardboard around it. I also tape ALL edges of the envelope because I've had the PO rip them, the coins fall out, and the receiver gets an empty envelope. You can never use too much tape on the outside.

For larger sales, really expensive coins or rolls, I always use a small box with everything inside a ziplock with tight bubble wrapped inside. Using a ziplock is almost always a good idea in case the package gets dropped in water. On expensive shipments, I also put a note in the bag "REWARD IF FOUND" along with my contact info and the buyers contact info.

Always use tracking or delivery confirmation....ALWAYS! To me, that's more important than insurance. I don't much like insurance unless it's going over $300 in value because it's almost worthless. Based on what I've heard, it's very difficult and time consuming to collect on insurance.....plus, IMO, it kind of puts a red flag on your package that something is valuable inside which might tip-off a crook.

 

Once more thing....make sure you cover the shipping address with tape too! I've had my labels get ripped off or get wet and fade away. When that happens you're screwed, tracking or not....at least I've been screwed by the PO.

 

So far so good, only a couple shipments so far but plan to continue for some time. Shipping from UK to Canada is fairly quick, about a week, but coming back the other way takes longer (up to 3 weeks). This is due to Canada Customs being painfully slow, I always have delays getting stuff shipped from the US - the last one I recieved took over a month. Unless US Customs has the same poor service, shipping between US and UK should be pretty quick.