General Forum

So sent off two trades today. My first two!! YAY!! Here is the deal-e-o, one was a large-ish(?) card deal so sent it as a bubble mailer (sacrelidge)!! It containted a couple cards seperate from the larger bunch that were inside a bill cover and then cardboard. The rest were sent in the playing card case they were purchased in. From SK to ON .............. $14.25 OUCH!! I told him that was nuts just send it regular parcel and he said that was . Almost died. Sent it anyway, lesson learned. The other was a PWE with two cardboard layers and 7 cards. SK to Chicago $3.10. I feel everyone's pain ..... shipping has become simply gross. LOL Then gas went up another 9 cents this afternoon. A juicy $1.21.9 here now on the flatlands .....  right where it comes out of the ground. Go figure.

if sending within Canada you can send as oversized letter (non tracked) for $2.10 with tax od $3.50 to the US. If they ask what is in it just say paper. My standard shipping method is card in a penny sleeve, toploader (sealed with painter's tape), in a team bag, inside a bubble mailer. Thinner cards will also be braced with base cards or cardboard spacers

ranfan, it seems your problem was not making it flat AND going Parcel. If the BM is evenly thick (same thickness from end-to-end) you get a cheaper charge. If it is thicker on one end than the other, it gets an extra charge added and an irregular envelope or package notation. I know yours was staying in Canada, but I'd guess they have that same layout. I sent a BM from US to Canada that I thought would have to go as a package b/c of the thickness (about 130 cards). I made it as close to even thickness as possible and it apparently worked. The mail lady pushed it through the thickness slot several times and said it should make it as an envelope instead of a package. So I could guarantee delivery for $16.00... OR risk it as an envelope that only cost $4.90 to ship. No-brainer to go with risking it. At worst it comes back to me and I have to do it again. The PO lady said that if it came back to me, to bring it back to her and she could deduct the money I already paid to ship it as an envelope from the price it would cost as a package. She ALSO asked if it was documents inside (an envelope pre-requisite). I told her it was baseball cards. They are paper/cardboard, so that makes them a document! The cards took about a week and a half to get delivered up there, but they made it safely and cost me less than a third of a package cost! If I couldn't ship the way I did, I would have brought them back home and split it into 2 mailers that would've shipped as envelopes. The total value of the cards was only $14, so I certainly wasn't going to pay $16 to ship them!

In the US, I ship cards as Parcel just to get the tracking number, but that's now a minimum of $3.50 unless you use Paypal or PitneyBowes. All of my trades to Canada have gone out as 1st Class envelopes! Each of them has arrived safely so far. It just takes longer.

If you wanna talk about gas prices, I WISH we could pay under $2.00 a gallon again! That hasn't happened since about 2000. Our prices keep jumping around lately. They've gone from about $2.30 in February to about $2.60 now. It's fluctuated a lot lately, several cents every few days up or down and back again. I live right near the pipeline that runs gasoline from the Gulf of Mexico area up to the New England area. Even with the high NC taxes on gasoline, we generally stay below the national average. But it's been really close lately. I skipped the gas station on Friday afternoon when it was $2.57/gallon at 3pm. Then I stopped at 7:15pm and it was $2.61/gallon. OOPS! On Monday, it was down to $2.58/gallon. That crap needs to stop. The NEWS is blaming price changes on the switch from winter blend to summer blend, but since when did that mean up and down and up again and down again?! They aren't changing back and forth with the weather this far south.

I sent a BM up to Canada with only 37 cards in it.  I ended up paying $10!  Next time I sent a trade up to Canada, I sent them in some cut up card pages wrapped in paper in a legal envelope.  Cost less than $2.

ranfordfan,what spaz says applies here too.They actually have a measuring tool that they can slide the package through.If it fits,it goes out regular mail.Alsosounds like your postie was a "dick".  Some are very cooperative; others are exaactly what you encountered.If you have options, find the good one.

I agree with sandy on this one . Went to the main post office here and got a good break. Then the head postal clerk returns from her vacation and proceeds to put the screws to me the next time I send and in the dame packaging, Had to go to a postal sub-office and got a good rate again so it's key to finding the "right" place in which to ship from. As for spaz and the gas prices let's not forget the conversions from our metric sysetm vs. the U.S. Imperial system. So, at approx $2.60 U.S for an imperial gallon (~3.785 of our precious liters) or about .69/ liter . Taking into account our woeful Cdn dollar at the present that would be in the range of .86 to .87Cdn./ liter.Comparing that to our current price here in New Brunswick , Canada at $1.25 Cdn. your price looks pretty good still.

Fill 'er up.

Yup will truely enjoy paying US price this summer on vaca, 50% off LOL (J/K of course)

Spaz - The $1.21 was per Liter, not gallon.

Spaz lives too far south to know about the metric system.

Reading through this thread made me giggle so many times.  "I sent a BM".  Yes, I am a 12 year-old (just ask my wife).

I did actually ship a buddy of mine an anonymous package from here once.  Managed to keep it a secret that it was me for weeks.  Was worth every penny.