Receiving a Coin Book Shipped From Spain

Curious if anyone has ever received a shipment from Spain and is familiar with their tracking system. It says "dropped off at local facility" for 3 days now? I have gotten items from Canada and their tracking system is phenomenal, and works somewhat with, or rather, before transferring to the USPS system. That's fine. I checked this Spain shipments tracking number on the USPS site like I have with Canadian ones and it of course does not recognize it, or maybe, doesn't recognize it yet.

Is it normal to sit for 3 days at a drop facility with no updates?

 

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Well I just got a package from Germany this week which until it appeared in my mailbox was still listed as being in the sorting facility in Germany and had been there since Feb 2nd.

 

Thats TERRIBLE! 45ish days in transit???

 

I buy from Spain a lot it normal to sit for 2 weeks before it's sent out to the US or
it sit in Custom office for weeks in the US then they give it to the post office

 

The worst South Africa and the Swiss postal systems. I sold a gold coin one time to a Swiss buyer it took 3 months. I made a purchase from SA it took 2.5 months.
Now I'm waiting on a package of Canadian notes ...nope not mailed from Canada but from Nebraska mailed on 3-7-15 USPS . 11 days and still waiting on the US Mail.

 

Yeah maybe, but I'm pretty patient and I do know that sometimes things get delayed. I didn't even start to ask any questions about it until after 35 days.

I learned patience back in the 70's when you ordered your proof sets from the mint in Feb and hoped they arrived before Christmas. (Checks were cashed immediately, there was no way to track the order, and it couldn't be canceled. You just waited until either it arrived or you got a notice that they had sold out. Then you waited for the refund.) Coin World's letters to the editor often had letters about delay gripes and how long it took to get their order. One I recall finally got his order after two years. The worst I even saw was a letter from a guy who ordered a 1971 40 silver proof Ike. In 1977 he received a notice that it was sold out and that they would be sending him a refund. i don't know how long he had to wait for the refund.

 

I have had several coins from European countries which took months to receive. I had one from Sumatra which took 5 months. But with that piece I was aware of it being a problem. The seller warned me that 1 out of 5 packages, with foreign delivery, are stolen before they make it out of the country. The government postal system will not insure anything leaving their island. They have private courier services that take anything of real value to Singapore for further shipment.

 

45 days is entirely WAY TOO LONG!!!

 

Italy is the worse

 

That was my reaction as well. I don't understand these timeframes. A couple days in the country to get out. A couple days in customs. A day crossing the ocean. A couple days in 9 ur customs dept, a couple days routed through our USPS. 15 days MAX.

 

Most of the times it's in customs if they move quick you get lucky but 30-45 is not rare

 

You may find it hard to believe, but outside of the U.S., depressed and third world countries still have delivery and local pick-up using bicycles. This is very true in rural areas. They only go out if the volume of letters warrants it. If you live way out, you may have to bring and pick-up the mail at the post office yourself. Perhaps once or twice a month? Sometimes the post office is only operated by one person, on a part-time basis, usually out of his home. There is no daily service.

 

No, that is beyond the scope of my imagination. I don't think Spain qualifies as a third world country.

 

Since the toner bomb scare a couple of years ago, mail inbound to the US has been very slow. My theory is that they park everything in a shed in the middle of a field for a couple of weeks to see if it explodes.

More seriously they may have stopped using passenger flights for package mail and this has caused huge delays as a good proportion of mail was shipped in passenger airliners on a space available basis and if there were few passengers, filling the baggage hold with pallets of parcels at least helped pay for the fuel.

 

Just Google "Spain's government postal system", it gives you some interesting thoughts about their efficiency. One article claims that internet ordering has never caught on in Spain so there is a built in weakness in their system. Another said P.O. Box Offices are recommended over residential delivery. Private companies have started up and are successful because of it. So it is a matter of which postal service things are shipped by. But john59 is correct about Italy. One statistic says one third of all mail does not get delivered in Italy, ever.

 

Countries in Central and South America and parts Europe use Private companies for mail in and out of there Countries. If not parcel lost would be 80% and letters close to 45%
Some time there are no marking on letter ect to tell if there are Private companies

 

This is one of the big reason why you see so many eBayer's list countries that they will not sell in. Too many claims for non-delivery and charge backs. Many of these countries don't offer tracking and will not respond to U.S. Postal inquires.

 

And if you send with tracking not to the US you looking a registered fee of more then $12.00

 

Umm, what would a "private" company be? Many if not most postal services in Europe are not government agencies but stock corporations.

Christian

 

The last two posts before Chrisild's are both as misguided as can be. In order backwards, USPS does an electronic delivery confirmation service for first class mail to many countries, look it up on the USPS website under e-Delcon. Registered US mail is treated as nothing special outside the US. And inside the US it travels at a snail's pace. There are far cheaper ways that $12 to cover risk.

Too many claims for non-delivery and charge backs. Many of these countries don't offer tracking and will not respond to U.S. Postal inquires.

Forget tracking for international sales. You do not need it. For about 1% premium you can insure your packages to most countries. Coins and notes can be covered as 'numismatic items' with a collectable value over face value. Canny sellers self insure.

A loss rate of 1 in 500 for all packages, mostly international, and covering over 10,000 packages was my experience. I have no doubt that I may have helped myself a little with customs forms that always read as near as possible to 'Boring Rubbish' and valued at 'Not worth stealing' but even without this precaution the risk is minimal.


Of course you will see loads of reports of missing items on discussion boards, what's the news if something arrived safely. Then people read the reports and assume all stuff goes missing. It does not.

Many European sellers are blocking or considering blocking US sales because the delays at import points to the US are just too long for customers to tolerate.