Shipping EBay coins
Halfpence
Posts: 452 ✭✭✭✭
It looks like I may be refunding a coin I recently shipped if it isn’t received in a couple of days. It wasn’t costly ($36), but still hurts. It got me thinking about shipping gold coins. I’ll likely be selling some 1/20 and 1/10 gold coins soon, and wondered how other sellers protect themselves from lost packages. Registered mail is the only option for insuring gold bullion (to my knowledge), put the cost means I wouldn’t be competitive. What do other sellers do? Thx in advance.
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USPS has been very slow due to holidays and Covid-related staff shortages. If it has been less than a month, give it some more time before declaring it lost. If you refund now your customer likely will receive the package later, and then you will be asking for your refund back.
do you have tracking? if you answer their eBay claim, and tracking has shown movement in last 10 days, you get another 10 days. If you do nothing, they automatically win.
I ship the more expensive coins in a small flat priority box with signature tracking.
I normally use the ebay padded shipping pack first-class tracking on everything else.
I self insure for anything under $1k. I've been doing this for 20 years and if I lose a package I'm still way way ahead. The PO does not need MY money.
bob
I have a private insurance policy that covers all of my shipments, so I never really think about the insurance side. Anything under $500 I ship First Class, over $500 Priority with a signature (per my insurance rules). I've had one package with an issue this year, and it arrived late and damaged (in particular, the label was damaged), but the buyer (who had already been refunded) just threw RTS on it instead of repackaging it, so it never made it back. I appreciate his help...
In the future, avoid the Christmas Rush and pray the Postal Service will catch up with this years record breaking volume of mail. Mail will be delivered eventually. If you have tracking available for your sale, get email notices of movement for your coin. In my case, which is not unusual, it took 20 days for a first class parcel to travel 300 miles, and 13 days for a first class (Christmas card) to travel 35 miles. Patience is the name of the game for the next few weeks. Good luck
I have used U-PIC in the past. I only had a couple of claims in the time I was insuring with them but they were easy to deal with and U-PIC paid without a hassle.
Delay your sales until the USPS package shipping problem is solved. This may take awhile as delays of several weeks are now common for packages shipped from some locations. Is it really wise to be selling bullion coins on eBay? Wouldn't you be doing better by just selling to a local dealer who pays realistic prices?
For expensive coins send it USPS Priority Mail Express with signature confirmation or UPS overnight 😎
I just chatted with U-pic. They don't insure gold coins. Thx for the suggestion, though!
I ship USPS priority with patricidal value insurance. For example if I ship 5K coin then I insurance 2K. 10K insure 5K which is the max for USPS. I provide free shipping on eBay for US shipping.
PO must be catching up. Today got a Xmas card from friends in Maryland. Post marked Dec. 17th.
I assume you mean partial insurance. How do you insure gold coins via USPS without using registered mail? USPS has a clause in their insurance policy stating that they will not honor insurance for lost precious metals unless shipped by registered mail.
You can ship numismatic items with insurance without using registered mail but not bullion.
you are not selling bullion, you are selling numismatic collectibles
for $200 and lower coins, self insuring is way to go if you tape to packing slip in padded envelope
4.0 Claims
4.1 Payable Claim
Insurance for loss or damage to insured, COD, or Registered Mail within the amount covered by the fee paid, or the indemnity limits for Priority Mail, or Priority Mail Express (under 4.2), is payable for the following:
g. For stamps and coins of philatelic or numismatic value; the fair market value is determined by a recognized stamp or coin dealer or current coin and stamp collectors’ newsletters and trade papers. The date of the fair market value determination must be current and prior to the mailing date.
m. Except for Registered Mail, the maximum indemnity for negotiable items (defined as instruments that can be converted to cash without resort to forgery), currency, or bullion, is $15.00.
https://pe.usps.com/text/DMM300/609.htm?q=numismatic&h=numismatic&t=H&s=R&p=1&c=DMM
Ah, got it. Has anyone here ever successfully filed a USPS claim on gold coins using the numismatic argument? Seems like there’s some subjectivity there.
I only claimed two times in my more than 10 years ebay sale. One was covered by good old PayPal seller protection. One was paid by usps priority default insurance but that was not coin. It was catalogs. I emailed usps with a eBay invoice. Usps took it as prove of value and paid the loss up to $50 for priority mail without insurance.
If you are talking about 1/10 or 1/20 oz gold that isn't much above bullion, they simply aren't worth insuring. They charge more than 1% of the insured value and they lose less than 0.1% of packages.