Permalias Receives the 1 oz A-Mark! Lesson : Don’t ship silver in envelopes

http://www.reddit.com/r/Silverbugs/comments/uq8f1/bernanks_1oz_silver_giveaway_received/

Our good friend Permalias received his 1 oz A-mark bar today. Pailin the winner of the Canadian Maple Leaf, never got his maple in the mail. So another one was sent out to him today. I have learned a lesson here and it is DO NOT SHIP SILVER COINS OR BARS in ENVELOPES. Even less than 1 oz. Initially I thought maybe there was some nefarious activity involved with the mail handlers, but thanks to SpaceVacater @ /r/Silverbugs I am sure this is the truth:

Hanlon’s Razor is applicable here.
A) I’d argue that most rational people aren’t willing to risk a decent job plus potentially do jail time for $30, even if the chance of being caught is relatively low. And, the postal inspection service takes this stuff VERY seriously. Serious enough to run internal sting operations if they suspect something. This guy got ~5 years for stealing $200.
B) For the US, the USPS handles 500K letters per day. The vast majority of this through automated sorting systems. The letters are pulled through rollers so the labels (both hand written and printed) can be scanned and sorted. Anything with sharp edges or bulky (i.e. NOT paper) has a good chance of getting caught on the rollers.
In this example, it looks you dropped the rectangular bar (heavy, sharp edges) into a simple paper envelope. That’s a big no no. (Even coins are potentially problematic.)
Using a padded envelope is typically enough to fix this issue.
I’m not one to defend the USPS, but I’d suggest there is a greater chance that the missing silver piece is stuck in an automatic sorting machine and will be found in a few years when the machine is rebuilt for maintenance.

Here is one of the sorting machines. I’m sure you can imagine that it wouldn’t be difficult to rip a paper envelope if one end was much heavier and got stuck.

Basically, do not cheap out. I know that is hard sometimes given my baruch-atah-adonai nature, but really: It isn’t worth it. It was about $1.00 for a stamped envelope, and $4.50 for a 1st class mailer with tracking #. I will call this a well learned $35 mistake.