Almost Started A Riot At USPS Mailing Coins

The exact same thing happened this morning at a local post office. A guy had printed his shipping label at home and placed it on a very thick, padded envelope. Wanting to make sure the postage was right, he waited in line to ask an agent.

She told him the package thickness wasn't right and needed to charge him more than he'd paid for.

He asked for a supervisor and she was more reasonable.


I don't think it was the agent's fault. I think this is a directive from upper management to enforce their rules.

But the rules are so blasted complex that a regular guy doesn't understand them. And when one is shipping a bunch of boxes as part of a business, having simpler rules is a needed optimization they must do.

I use plain 6X9" Kraft envelopes and sandwich my coin(s) between two thick pieces of corrugated cardboard which I salvage from old boxes. With the cardboard plus receipt and packaging tape the final package thickness seems OK to our local Post Office. Total weight is almost always 3 oz or less so the PayPal shipping cost with delivery confirmation is $1.75. That's the most cost-effective method I've found.

Yass, you hit the nail on the head. Now you understand how our government works. If it is a stupid plan, they go with it.....

I too always throw a couple packing peanuts into the envelope to "puff it up"

I ship exactly how you do, Jaobler. Using corrugated cardboard is excellent for protection during shipping and it also bumps up the envelope to the right thickness. I only pay $1.75 for First Class Mail with Delivery Confirmation as well. Obviously it gets more expensive as you add insurance and move up to priority shipping for higher valued coins, but in the end, there really is no better way to ship.

I've been told this 3/4" rule a couple times in the past. However, now I'm friends with ALL of the PO workers and they don't say a word to me anymore. LOL I've never had a problem down the line. I personally think once it gets past the "first line" it never gets checked again.

At least they have a sense of humor!

Complex and numerous and open to interpretation by each postal clerk (as we've seen in this thread), or maybe just ignored by many. The "rule" book is over two inches thick. How would YOU like to have such a rule book in YOUR job to use and follow?

For 22+ years I mailed a Reader's Digest-sized mag averaging 24 pages per issue and prepared it, according to the rules, for first-class ruling, with clear "First-Class" markings on it.

Imagine my choice of language when one mailing disappeared around Christmastime, only to turn up in a warehouse in Kansas City a month later - apparently because some dufus didn't read the labels on the mailing carton and assumed that the magazine was a fourth-class mailing and sent it to mail heck to wait out the rush season.

So, yeah - the way the USPS is set up now, it takes only ONE moron to screw up a mailing, in spite of the thousands of hard-working, helpful, courteous employees who go out of their way to try to get your stuff from point A to point B.

I used to work for IRS (now I work for the good guys...) Our rule books filled over 38000 pages. They were the Internal Revenue Code and the US Treasury Regulations. Thank goodness for the Paperwork Reduction Act passed in the 1980s.

I have yet to have any problems with a bubble envelope when I buy and label online through ebay. As has been pointed out, First Class with Delivery Confirmation is only $1.75. It's dropped in the drive-through mailbox, and, when picked up, goes directly to the processing center. There has never once been a problem.