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Josh EvansThis is what I can tell you from my experience of having sent millions of dollars through the mails including pieces and packages worth from a few bucks to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In the old days if something was lost or damaged (the carrier’s fault) you got paid promptly on your claim be it Post Office, FedEx, or UPS. One year we lost an amazing collection of Wacky Packs Original Art (including Gadzooka) in a highly publicized well plane crash (FedEx I believe). For years the collector who bought it was convinced I had made the whole thing up and still had them. He would call me about once a year to tell me he still “wanted them” and to come clean in a nice way. And you thought baseball collectors were nuts.
Now just forget about ever getting paid with a claim. You have to assume they won’t pay. I’m not saying they never pay but it’s like a chapter (or a scene) out of John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker.” For this reason we use our regular insurance carrier.
Obviously that does not work with collectors who rarely ship items of this value. You can get an added rider on your homeowner’s policy but that can be pretty expensive. You can use a courier service which is also expensive but very reliable. I have not used on for years but when I did it was fairly astronomical, like $1,000+. Years ago, FedEx had a program where for an extra $100 they would take extra special care. Basically the Dalai Lama would come and pick it up and deliver it. I forget what it was called and we used it all the time and it was the best. They got rid of it because people were using it for mostly cash and drugs, plus I heard it just didn’t pay for them. What does that tell you?
But for my money, registered mail is the most reliable way to ship anything. As one postmaster told me years ago, “It has to be signed for every step of the way and if it gets lost someone losses their job.”
But as most of you say the best way is to get on a plane. Second best is to ship it and pray a lot.