Options
Shipping coins over the weekend - risky or urban myth?
Lakesammman
Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've heard this many times but suspect it's an urban myth.
Any objective truth one way or the other??
Do 3rd party insurers charge more for a Friday ship rather than Monday (their actuaries should be on top of this)?
"My friends who see my collection sometimes ask what something costs. I tell them and they are in awe at my stupidity." (Baccaruda, 12/03).I find it hard to believe that he (Trump) rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world. (Putin 1/17) Gone but not forgotten. IGWT, Speedy, Bear, BigE, HokieFore, John Burns, Russ, TahoeDale, Dahlonega, Astrorat, Stewart Blay, Oldhoopster, Broadstruck, Ricko.
0
Comments
I've never heard this, and would say it is a complete myth. Since most packages take up to 3 days, you would have to ship on Monday or Tuesday ONLY if you want to avoid the weekends.
I dont know about risks but I have had lots of packages arrive on Saturday USPS.
I have a trusted dealer that won’t ship over the weekend. These are one or two day shipments. He doesn’t want it sitting at the Post Office or in their possession over the weekend. He is not alone. I don’t want coins shipped over the weekend either.
I 100% dont trust the USPS. Maybe 110% don’t trust them. After my recent experience with a stolen shipment several post office employees told me off the record they don’t trust some of their fellow workers. I believe them.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Risky? Maybe. An old dealer-friend says his insurer won't cover Friday shipments. I have no bad experience to relate. But I'm not looking to find out. So I don't ship on Friday.
Lance.
It’s hell Lance
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Based on my experience with weekend deliveries.. I can't complain.
I won’t ship on Thursday either. My most recent Priority Express package mailed on a Thursday arrived Saturday and the business was closed. Luckily it was successfully delivered Monday.
It's a myth. The Post Office now delivers on 7 days for certain services. The idea that a package is just sitting around somewhere is inaccurate at best unless it was shipped by 1st class mail.
Further, for high dollar value coins, registered shipments are locked down when not in transit so it makes little difference what day of the week it is.
Interesting topic !!!
I know our local USPS in southeastern Pa and they deliver all sorts of premium postal packages, parcels, envelopes on Sundays. I don't see them out after dark but definitely during daylight. I think problems are regional and effected by volume flow. Peace Roy
BST: endeavor1967, synchr, kliao, Outhaul, Donttellthewife, U1Chicago, ajaan, mCarney1173, SurfinHi, MWallace, Sandman70gt, mustanggt, Pittstate03, Lazybones, Walkerguy21D, coinandcurrency242 , thebigeng, Collectorcoins, JimTyler, USMarine6, Elkevvo, Coll3ctor, Yorkshireman, CUKevin, ranshdow, CoinHunter4, bennybravo, Centsearcher, braddick, Windycity, ZoidMeister, mirabela, JJM, RichURich, Bullsitter, jmski52, LukeMarshall
Not an urban myth...
From Ship and Insure:
Restrictions
Refer to your policy for the Maximum limit insurable allowed per package.
No overnight letters or envelopes will be insured.
For full coverage, an Overnight shipment made on Friday must be designated for delivery on Saturday, with a carrier who delivers on Saturday. Overnight shipments made on Friday with delivery designated for Monday delivery are limited to a maximum of $15,000.
Overnight shipments made on the eve of any holiday that cannot be designated for delivery the following day will be limited to a maximum of $10,000.
Deliveries to New York with a zip code of 10032 and 10036 as well as Los Angeles zip codes 90014 and 90013 have a maximum limit of $15,000.
Rarcoa told me they discourage it. If a rare coin(s) is sitting on a shelf or in transit the temptation is greater than when it is travelling express. "A rolling stone gathers no moss".
I discourage sending coins by express mail on a Friday. If the recipient doesn’t get it on Saturday then it just sits at the PO the rest of the weekend and anything can happen. Many coins just can’t be replaced. In addition, make sure that you check the signature required box otherwise the parcel gets dropped off and it can possibly get swiped.
My current insurance is with Willis and they cut your maximum insurable amount significantly if you ship over the weekend. Hugh Wood was the same way. The thought process is, if a package is moving it is harder to be tampered with. If it is in a warehouse sitting on a shelf, something can happen. This applies more to Fedex than USPS but of course USPS has it's own issues.
I understand justacommeman's recent sizable loss on a package.
But here in flyover country, USPS is totally reliable. Slightly better than UPS, much better than FedEx.
Maybe here it is that good jobs are really hard to come by, and the senior USPS people take it very seriously.
I have zero family involved in USPS.
I do not ship a lot of high value packages, however, when I do, I pay for Registered Mail. Just makes sense to me. Cheers, RickO
not a myth
Send it registered and don't worry.
It's risky - your risk increases with time - an overnight shipment might be out there for 18 hours, a weekend shipment is out for 56+ hours. I never ship significant value over a weekend.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
When I was selling my personal collection some years ago, I'd have my auctions end on a Thursday or Friday so I could verify payment, package everything over a weekend, and then ship first thing Monday morning. Just from a simple "nuts-and-bolts" perspective, it fit better in my schedule. I... (knock on wood)... never lost a shipment.
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
This. In fact I have so much confidence in Reggies I don't insure them
My recent (thankfully resolved with extra time) mail hassle was Priority Express next day.
Mailed on a Monday.
So.. ???
It would be interesting to see actual data. The max insurance rates for Ship & insure are still pretty high, so it would seem that the risk is higher, but only marginally so. And this is what I would expect.
Everything we do in life has risks. Things like driving a car, swimming in a pool, or riding a bicycle are much more likely to have a serious negative outcome than shipping a high value package on a Friday. So I don't worry about it. The only thing I do worry about on Friday overnight shipments is customers getting mad when it isn't delivered on Saturday (we ship FedEx, non-coins).
Not allowed by Legend’s insurance company last I asked.
I used to put some stock in this but it's really a myth. The odds of a package getting lost or stolen are just as high on Monday as they are on Friday.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Seems like insurance companies are the ones with the best data to determine risk...and they determine it to be more risky to ship over the weekend. Logically as many note time and lack of movement increase the chances that something will happen.
Latin American Collection
I have no limitations on shipping currently by any carrier or service tier, but in the past had my limits reduced by 50% for Fedex shipments that went over a weekend.
Coin Rarities Online
I ship all my coins for grading on Saturday, (mailman usually gets here at 3 PM) and they are to PCGS every Monday morning without fail. (Half way across the country)
This may be true, but the cost of insurance is way out of whack with the actual risk of loss. These are huge profit centers for the shippers and insurers and I'm not so sure they are clinging to tight margins on the actuarial tables.
The fact is that shipping is a 24-hour per day 7-day per week operation with people working . Packages are no more unattended on most weekends than they would be on any night of the week in most cases. While there may be slightly fewer people moving around the warehouse on Sunday, the only time the package stops moving is if it has arrived at its destination post office and is unable to be delivered (1st class on Sundays, etc.) As a result, the tier of service has to matter far more than the day of the week.
In my ever humble opinion.
I think one of the factors is that mostly regular postal employees work Monday through Friday while there are more contract and part time employees working on weekends. A couple of weeks ago I got a expensive coin delivered to my home in a registered package on a Saturday. The USPS delivery person threw it on my front porch and took off without even ringing my door bell. Fortunately I was home and retrieved the package. There was a large label saying that a signature was required and it was highlighted in bright pink. I went to the post office on Monday to complain to the supervisor there. She showed me a computer printout of where I signed for my package. It was just a squiggly line and I told the supervisor that it certainly wasn't my signature. She asked me to sign my name on this printout which I did. She was quite angry and told me that she would confront this employee. If this package was lost or stolen the Post Office would have been liable for the insured value of the package.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
Yikes. Hope that wasn't my package!
Not your package. It was from a national coin dealer.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
I must admit, the Ship and Insure post got my attention - didn't realize (or forgot) the limitations on Express mail over the weekend - thanks for posting!
I prefer weekends. Everything priority that I ship Fri or Sat is delivered on Monday with few exceptions.
MY COINS FOR SALE AT https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/other/bajjerfans-coins-sale/3876