Auction House Shipping Question

[Topnotchsy]

Hey all,

I recently won a couple of Cobb signed checks at Julien's auction. A few days after winning the auction I got an email from a packing company with an estimate $150 for packing and shipping the item without insurance. With the option of paying additional for insurance.

I emailed the auction house to see if there were other options. They gave me the info of a couple of other packing companies in the area to get quotes. I tried reaching out to one but never heard back.

Has anyone ever dealt with a situation like this? I seem to recall Sotheby's had extremely high shipping rates. I don't understand why they can't just drop the checks into a priority mail envelope. It's not so complicated.

In the past I bought from Julien's and this wasn't how shipping was handled.