What is the best way to ship a very expensive item

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Posted By: Rhys

I am trying to decide what the best way to ship a very expensive item through the mail. The value of the item(s) is between $40,000-$50,000. I am strongly considering just getting a plane ticket and hand delivering it at a cost of about $300 total and a day of my time. I know some companies wont honor the inured value on collectibles like this. The thought of something happening to this package would really eat at me while it was in tansit and I would never live it down if something happened to it.

Any ideas or thoughts regarding shipping or should I just eat the cost of a flight and make sure the items get there safe?

Thanks in advance

Rhys Yeakley

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Posted By: barrysloate

I feel confident enough that if I had a package of that value I would send it registered mail and insure it for the maximum 25K. I've actually done it before. It will cost about $40-45. But I don't know how large it is, as you didn't tell us.

UPS insures up to $50,000, and has overnight and second day air, and of course will accept large packages. 50K of insurance, with one or two day delivery, should cost around $175-200.

And when I shipped the Lindy Lindstrom card, which I insured for 92K, I used Brink's, but you would have to see if they have an office near you, which they may not.

Or you could hand deliver it.

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Posted By: robert a

Hi Rhys.

I believe the registered mail insurance limit is 25k.
I suppose you could ship your package insured for 25k, but a one day trip may not be a bad idea if you have the time.

Rob

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Posted By: Lance

Certified mail is the absolute safest way. It requires a signature eveytime it passes hands.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Lance- you may be thinking of registered mail. That at least allows insurance.

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Posted By: Joe D.

Rhys,

In general I would suggest overnight shipping with insurance.
I am not sure of the max on usps for overnight shipping.
I believe UPS is $50,000.
Forget FedEx... they only offer up to $500 for baseball cards.

The thought is - shorter time in transit - shorter worry time.


BUT -
in your case....
especially considering this line you wrote:
"The thought of something happening to this package would really eat at me while it was in tansit and I would never live it down if something happened to it."
I say - hop on the plane.

Good luck.

Regards,
Joe

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Posted By: Anonymous

WRONG!!

Certified goes into the regular mail stream, Registered is under lock and key and must be signed for at every step of the way.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Rhys- if you have two items and they can be put into 2 boxes insured for 25K each, and that gives you peace of mind, go the registered route and save yourself the plane trip.

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Posted By: Jason L

To my house!

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Posted By: Jeff Prizner

so what's the item?

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Posted By: Lance

Registered...DUH!

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Depends how fragile your item(s) is(are). If they are not too, then registered insured is a good option. It will take a bit longer, but is a very reliable cost-effective way of shipping. If you have a fragile item, then I always go the overnight option with Fedex or UPS. I just hate having the item with the carrier any longer than I have to (and on this score I never ship over weekends). UPS offers better insurance choices than Fedex, but I have heard of horror stories (one happening to me many years ago) with the package getting mangled on the conveyor belt. If you don't have your own insurance and your only option to have it insured is by the carrier, then I would probably go with UPS one-day and package the hell out of the item.

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Posted By: Steve Murray

I have just the tape for you.

Me, I'd hop in the Jag and make a mini vacation out of it.

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Posted By: barrysloate

That's good tape, don't you think?

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Posted By: Andrew

Take the $300 flight, that way the package never leaves your hands and you`ll still have $49,700 left over! Ha

Andrew

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Posted By: Sean BH

Take the flight; you can probably write off as a business expense and you earn frequent flier miles!

sdbh

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Posted By: Jeff Kennedy

You can go beyond the $25K limit that is stamped onto everything that you see pertaining to registered mail. They just figure that in most cases people don't send more then $25K worth of stuff through the mail. I was quoted the price of $38.75 for the first $25K then you start adding an additional $1.10 per $1K worth of coverage after that. Seems the best way to ship if you ask me. Correct me if I am wrong but with UPS, it won't be under lock and key like it will be if sent registered.

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Posted By: Red

The maximum of insurance coverage with Registered Mail is $25,000.00. If you declare a value of $50,000 the additional fee is for the PO's increased charge to handle such a package, not insurance.
http://pe.usps.gov/text/dmm300/503.htm#wp1100045
So if you ship a $15,000,001 card the Registered Mail fee is $16,511.25, plus another few dollars for the actual postage, or a single stamp will do if you're a White Envelope Shipper. You get $25,000 of insurance coverage with the PO and the balance you'd have to insure through your own insurance provider.

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Posted By: Darren

Fly.

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

We would suggest that you call Rob Lifson

Rob generally has at least two dozen lots in his annual
auction which exceed $25,000 in value. Said lots are
shipped all over the country as well as to distinguished
collectors as far away as Hong Kong.

Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: 1880nonsports

- that you can't recover more than 25,000.00 if the package were lost. I have sent a couple of 30,000.00 packages registered mail and took the chance on the balance. Registered does make me feel safe due to the locking/signing. That having been said - nice problem to have anyway . Even if I threw my wife in I got nuttin worth that. Bruce made a good point as well....

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Posted By: ramram

Read the carrier's fine print. As you mentioned, some carriers don't cover certain kinds of collectibles. That doesn't mean that they won't take your money...just that it may not be covered if something happens.

If the plane takes you near a warm resort area, I would definitely go that route!

Rob M.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

for a long time.........and own a UPS Store........
But didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn last night.......

If you go with UPS or FedEx, Corey has the best idea....ship using overnight. FedEx or UPS, shipping ground, will go through multiple hubs before delivery. Keep it out of the system as much as possible. Plus, air shipments get more premium handling. UPS does offer better insurance options than FedEx BUT.....you have to double-check with them about insuring items which cannot be replaced. Sometimes that's iffy.....

You can also secure a one-time rider for the package before shipment from an insurance company providing them the tracking number prior to shipment. That's what I've done with Rob Lifson a couple times and my two shipments to him have been right around or slightly above the $50K range. He had me ship FedEx--what his insurance company had him have me do (and difficult for me!) and call with the tracking number before it was shipped.

On a $50K package, UPS will have it in lock and key as well. High Value shipments are locked down pretty good. I won't say that they're (or we're) as tight as Registered mail but they do have high value cages in all 1000+ buildings out there. Every carrier has conveyor belts and slides......have been to all three major hubs in the US....DHL in Wilmington, OH, FedEx in Memphis and worked at UPS in Louisville.....

While registered mail does have everyone sign for it, you have no REAL visibility of where the package is in the process cause no real scanning. At least with FedEx and UPS you can see the intermediate scanning although sometimes that's enough to drive you crazy if something gets lost or delayed. I've tracked packages for a few people from the board before....

Unfortunately, there's no completely failsafe way. Anything can happen with any service. I've heard of registered mail being lost before but probably less than the other services. I've contemplated hopping an airplane in the past but never did.

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Posted By: leon

I've had 4 transactions of over 50k. Two were hand delivered and 2 were over nighted....no issues. I had to hold my breath on the over nighted ones though...regards

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Posted By: Joe_G.

I've used USPS Registered and insured for all my items approaching $1000 for a couple years with no issues until now. I'm currently waiting on an item that was sent Dec 27th (20 days ago). I'm requesting that the sender of the item issue a claim from where it was sent now that we are approaching 21 days (takes 3 weeks before a claim can be filed). I'm more than a bit concerned as the item is the nicest copy I've seen of a very rare card/cabinet.

Best Regards,
Joe Gonsowski

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Posted By: Jim

This group is slipping. 24 responses and not one suggested cutting the card in half and insuring both halves for $25000.

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Posted By: Brett

If you can afford to own a $50,000 baseball card, then you shouldn't have a problem buying a plane ticket to go pick it up... lol

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Posted By: cmoking

"If you can afford to own a $50,000 baseball card, then you shouldn't have a problem buying a plane ticket to go pick it up... lol"

I look at it the other way. If you can afford to own a $50,000 baseball card, then your time is incredibly valuable and taking the time to go pick it up is the last thing on your mind.

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Posted By: Jim Manos

I would send via registered mail. Trust me I learned. I am still in a legal battle with the *******. Know your client.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Rhys,
I delivered my Jackson and other t210s to Rob Lifson personally. I flew to NYC and made a 3 day trip of it. I visited my son who was living there at the time and ate at an enchanting Portuguese restaurant that I'll never forget. I will have to say though, it felt pretty weird to be riding the subway with a brief case holding over 100K worth of cards.

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Posted By: Josh Evans

This 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.

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Posted By: Rhys

Thanks for all the responses. I think I am going to eat the plane ticket and take it as a tax deduction and just enjoy meeting another extremely nice collector face to face. I agreed before the deal was finalized that it would be my responsibility to get the items to him and basically figured several hundred dollars of the price into the final amount so I am not really out anything.

As to answer a few of the other questions, the items are some 19th century correspondances between baseball players/owners and a 98% complete prewar baseball card set.

My biggest concern is what Josh stated. I feel like even if something happened to the package with full insurance and I filed a claim, they would never pay. It might be a one in a million chance that something happens to it, but if I am the one than I will badly regret my decision. I wish the trip was to Florida, but at least I like the midwest!

Thanks Again for all the insight.

Rhys Yeakley