USPS square box fail via Global Shipping

poor choice to use a square box. i gather the post office was out of triangle boxes but even a small cardboard tube inside the rolled posters may have helped. when a square box flattens, and they all do, then it can be bent. very unfortunate as these Apple posters are hard to come by. The folds may flatten a bit but the little crease is a drag.

another issue with Global Shipping is everything goes to Kentucky. So I buy this poster in Colorado, it is trucked across the county then is sent north to Toronto, then is trucked back to the west where I am. So it travels about 4000 miles by truck and is handled many times and damage is almost inevitable. As the crow flies I am 900 miles from point of purchase, just sayin'...

this eBay item died in Erlinger Kentucky

Global Shipping ate my eBay purchase, again. Shown is a rather rare Apple 30th Anniversary poster that has two bent corners and repeating creases. The seller said he shipped a mint poster in a cardboard tube with two end caps. It arrived minus a cap and the open end was now covered with eBay tape. Two opposite corners were bent, that was obvious immediately, and on unrolling a dent translated into a series of repeating creases from top to bottom. Bummer. My take, based on several items arriving from Erlinger retaped with eBay tape is that the Global/Pitney Bowes employees open packages coming to Canada. I have received several ripped, cut, crushed and dirty fingerprinted items all poorly resealed with eBay tape. On this one, in order to pull the poster from the overly long tube, the inspector pounded the tube on a table until it slid enough to grab it by bending a corner and then pull it out. The cardboard tube end was crushed and folded over all around the edge. It should have been obvious it was a poster just by looking in the tube, but no -  someone had to remove it and then forced it back into the tube, kinking or creasing it in the process. Somewhere along the line the end cap was lost. This is bullshit.

So, advice to senders of posters, use the proper length tube, this one was about a foot too long. Roll the poster and wrap it with a sheet of paper to allow it to be easily inserted into and removed from the tube. By wrapping the poster smaller than the diameter of the tube, if the tube gets creased (and this one was not btw) then there is a chance the poster will not be creased as it has a bit of room to deflect away from the impact. Also a bit of cushioning on each end to keep it from slamming into the end caps help keep it from being edge damaged.

the mug was mugged

double boxed mug and lunch box from Oklahoma via USPS; the Yellow Submarine sank

bad apple poster

this sad story is from Germany, a very thin box that deformed easily, allowing it to fold, crushing the loosely packed poster inside. note to shippers: use a heavy cardboard tube or triangle box that has some integral strength, this box did nothing to protect a fairly expensive vintage poster.

6 years later UPS still drop kicking parcels across the border

By mistake a shipper in the States sent me a laptop via UPS instead of USPS and sure enough it arrived with exorbitant brokerage fees and the usual crushed box. Over the 6 years since I wrote the comment at the bottom of the page linked below, I have learned not to buy computers that do not ship in original boxes with original packing. That is the only way to reasonably expect one to arrive intact. Case in point, a 12" G4 PowerBook arrived today, original box in a second box, dropped on a corner. Dropped so hard that of the 4 supports on the bottom styro shell, 2 were flattened, and the 4th was disintegrated. The laptop is fine. Close one. Over the years USPS has gotten better, in fact I always specify USPS; however no improvement in UPS, friendly delivery folks but almost always a disappointment when the box gets opened.


UPS to Serve Canadian eBayers

bent 4' posters via USPS

this tube arrived looking like a hockey stick, which is unfortunate as both of the large iPad 2 posters ended up creased top to bottom. the cardboard tube was split open as well as bent so while it does not take a lot to damage a tube, there were no fragile tags on it and the paper wrapping inside indicates it was packed by USPS. however to be fair the tube was also handled by Canada Post. as a collector this kinda took the fun out of the "unboxing." the only good news was the damage was off to the side rather than down the middle. it may be possible to iron out the wrinkles a bit.

15" iMac - USPS - broken neck screws

poorly packed iMac from electronixeast arrived with neck screws sheared, small screws laying loose and bits of black plastic grommets broken off the neck swivel area - box was suited more for a tower and the iMac had no supporting styro allowing the heavy base to bounce around and it seems to have taken quite an impact as the 2 sides of the chrome neck are not aligned on either axis