[NHCOLL-L:122] re: insuring specimen shipments

[Michael Cooper]

There's a story, possibly true, concerning a large diamond found in
Africa. Amid much fanfare and publicity this very valuable item was
hand-couriered to Amsterdam for cutting. The package contained a lump of
rock. The real thing was put in an anonymous parcel and sent through the
post.

Mick

Michael P. Cooper
Registrar, Nottingham Museums & Galleries
michaelc at notmusbhy.demon.co.uk

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Mike Taylor [SMTP:mike at museum.tulane.edu]
> Sent:	Thursday, April 22, 1999 4:25 PM
> To:	nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject:	[NHCOLL-L:117] re: insuring specimen shipments
> 
> >I beg to differ.  Registering a package slows its delivery
> considerably.  This
> >is because every person who handles the package must fill out a form
> stating
> >where and when s/he did so.  I would expect that this is true of
> almost any
> >form of package-tracing in the USPS.
> 
> Nor do you always get efficient tracking of registered mail. We once
> sent
> spms by registered USPS mail that never arrived at its destination. I
> filled out the forms requesting the post office to find the package.
> This
> was 4-5 years ago and I have never, EVER received an answer.
> Registered
> mail is NOT tracked by computer, but merely by a number written down
> on
> various pieces of paper as the package makes its way to the
> destination.
> 
> (It turns out the above package never left the campus mail center, but
> the
> USPS never even responded saying they never heard of the registration
> number.)
> 
> >On the other hand, UPS has automatic tracking with those bar codes
> they put on
> >every package.  You can track it yourself on the web and it doesn't
> seem to
> >slow things down.
> 
> I agree that insuring specimens that can't be replaced with a mere
> monetary
> value is pointless. For most specimens, we ship regular US mail and
> have
> never lost a package. (The above situation doesn't count. We got the
> spms
> back and it wasn't the USPS's fault.) For important specimens and
> paratypes, we ship second day UPS for computer tracking.
> 
> 
> Mike
> --
> Michael S. Taylor                              mike at museum.tulane.edu
> Manager of Collections                         Phone: (504) 394-1711
> Tulane Museum of Natural History               Fax: (504) 394-5045
> Belle Chasse, Louisiana  70037          http://www.museum.tulane.edu/