Poker Chip Shipping Tips and Tricks (4 Viewers)

[BearMetal]

I searched this thread for the word "reuse" and didn't find any hits for my issue, so I figured I'd post it here. Do not reuse USPS Flat Rate boxes if you are not sending flat rate. I recently tried to save the planet by reusing a MFRB to ship some very light 3D printed DB racks. The cost to ship it was like $7 Priority based on weight (purchased online). When I got to the post office, I asked the postmaster whether it would be an issue and she said no and accepted it.

About a week later, PirateShip charged me an extra $8. Apparently you cannot reuse a MFRB if not sending it flat rate. I searched online about this and found conflicting information. Some say that the reason the USPS puts the Flat Rate markings on the inside of the box as well is to prevent people from turning them inside out and using them for a different service class. But I also found documentation on USPS's website that indicates I could have used it for another service class.

Long story short, here's my tip: Do not reuse a flat rate box for any other service type.

 

[horseshoez]

I searched this thread for the word "reuse" and didn't find any hits for my issue, so I figured I'd post it here. Do not reuse USPS Flat Rate boxes if you are not sending flat rate. I recently tried to save the planet by reusing a MFRB to ship some very light 3D printed DB racks. The cost to ship it was like $7 Priority based on weight (purchased online). When I got to the post office, I asked the postmaster whether it would be an issue and she said no and accepted it.

About a week later, PirateShip charged me an extra $8. Apparently you cannot reuse a MFRB if not sending it flat rate. I searched online about this and found conflicting information. Some say that the reason the USPS puts the Flat Rate markings on the inside of the box as well is to prevent people from turning them inside out and using them for a different service class. But I also found documentation on USPS's website that indicates I could have used it for another service class.

Long story short, here's my tip: Do not reuse a flat rate box for any other service type.

One exception. I've done this for using certain sizes for overseas shipments. Only do this if you don't have any other box you can't use. Cover the entire box with card stock paper or thick printing paper to conceal all the USPS and Priority Mail markings. Example below,

 

[Stufflymcstuff]

im looking to stock up on boxes and supplies but wanted to hear what people thought.
(i tried searching this thread and the forum but it's tough to find specific info)

i'm looking at indestructo boxes from uline and trying to choose the best box for shipping.

for 1 rack, the werneke box measures 8.5x3x1.5 inches and i'm thinking about getting a 9x4x2 indestructo box to ship it in (which is measured from the interior). that would leave 0.5, 1 and 0.5 inches of space. my thought was to use one wrap around with 3/16th inch bubble wrap which would be very close to exactly filling the void for the length and the height and leave an extra 0.5inches for the width that i'd stuff some extra wrap or peanuts into.

should i be going bigger on the box and/or using the 5/16th inch bubble wrap instead?

also, when shipping 2 (or 4, or whatever) racks, do you use significantly more bubble wrap and/or larger bubbles?

 

[jdparrish21]

What a great thread and advice! I've been receiving sample sets in small boxes and wondering why senders aren't just using envelops..

 

[jdparrish21]

Some great ideas!! Love it. I prefer using the plastic cling wrap if I am not including a plastic barrel sleeve. I have also designed and 3D printed my own plastic barrel case that costs less than $0.10 in material to print.

 

[ArielVer18]

I searched this thread for the word "reuse" and didn't find any hits for my issue, so I figured I'd post it here. Do not reuse USPS Flat Rate boxes if you are not sending flat rate. I recently tried to save the planet by reusing a MFRB to ship some very light 3D printed DB racks. The cost to ship it was like $7 Priority based on weight (purchased online). When I got to the post office, I asked the postmaster whether it would be an issue and she said no and accepted it.

About a week later, PirateShip charged me an extra $8. Apparently you cannot reuse a MFRB if not sending it flat rate. I searched online about this and found conflicting information. Some say that the reason the USPS puts the Flat Rate markings on the inside of the box as well is to prevent people from turning them inside out and using them for a different service class. But I also found documentation on USPS's website that indicates I could have used it for another service class.

Long story short, here's my tip: Do not reuse a flat rate box for any other service type.

The free boxes you get from USPS are free because they expect you to use them for a specific USPS service. Flat rate boxes can only be used for flat rate, regional boxes can only be used for regional rate, priority express boxes can only be used for priority express rates, etc. It used to be popular to use turn the free small flat rate box inside-out to ship first-class, but USPS cracked down on that by printing PRIORITY on the inside.

Level of enforcement does vary though. You might be able to get away with covering the box with a brown bag or a bunch of tape, but do note that the dimensions of some free USPS boxes are unique to USPS and a power tripping postal worker with a keen eye might investigate and stamp POSTAGE DUE on the package.

 

[BearMetal]

The free boxes you get from USPS are free because they expect you to use them for a specific USPS service. Flat rate boxes can only be used for flat rate, regional boxes can only be used for regional rate, priority express boxes can only be used for priority express rates, etc. It used to be popular to use turn the free small flat rate box inside-out to ship first-class, but USPS cracked down on that by printing PRIORITY on the inside.

Level of enforcement does vary though. You might be able to get away with covering the box with a brown bag or a bunch of tape, but do note that the dimensions of some free USPS boxes are unique to USPS and a power tripping postal worker with a keen eye might investigate and stamp POSTAGE DUE on the package.

I didn't even know that flat rate boxes were free until I hit this problem and started researching it. On the positive side, I think that it's really a great service that USPS offers: they'll give you a free box and you pay a flat fee to ship in it. Of course, they'd want to prevent people from getting free boxes and using a different service class.

However, my two points:

• I didn't get this box free; I reused one of the many USPS flat rate boxes that I've received in an effort to reduce/reuse/recycle. Granted, there's no way for the post office to really know I did that (except maybe for the fact that box was CLEARLY a re-ship; still had remnants of prior postage on it).
• I asked the postmaster; like, come on! This is your job and it has the freaking word "master" in it. That's like asking the Ice Cream Master if the Double Dunk Cherry Chunk has dairy in it, and she says, "no".

So, really not blaming USPS in general (except for the post"master"). Just a warning to anyone who searches for this question before they get charged an extra $8

 

[Tommy]

USPS's new poker chip flat rate shipping boxes.

(it's going inside of a med FRB )

 

[Tommy]

Medium flat rate boxes with no printing on the inside?!?! I don't recall seeing that before. Made in June 2020 so not that old. You can flip these inside out and use them as non-flat rate boxes.

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

So a few notes for anyone who wants more secure shipping for stuff that’s expensive and irreplaceable

for racks I shipped from home when visiting back to Guam that I felt were irreplaceable I use REGISTERED mail as it is very reliable.
I have experience using it at work for stuff you go to jail for loosing. It’s that secure. It’s in a locked cage I believe at all times.

the next step down is Express.
a bubble mailer is like $25 flat rate and also kept locked in a cage but the access isn’t as restricted as REGS

I’ve almost gone mandatory express mail for anything $500 and up now considering it’s $9 vs $25 for alot higher level of protection. It’s always in the cage and they won’t throw it on your driveway and leave it either.

after seeing an empty envelope arrive for someone on Facebook it’s a reminder why I always put singles in a double envelope with the mailing label wrapped on both.
same for flat rate always double labeled on the inside box. Just in case.
its like 3.50 for 4oz and $4 for 8oz so there is plenty of room to double wrap the singles in a bubble mailer for me.

 

[CaliKing21]

Doubling a Large Flat Rate box. (Or Medium)

Updated instructions here:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/poker-chip-shipping-tips-and-tricks.7614/post-289986

USPS.com has all packing supplies for free. I like to use the padded flat rate bubble mailer inside a flat rate legal size envelope. You can fit two racks inside the buble mailer. Tape it. Put that inside another bubble mailer. Tape it. You can even do it a third time. Last slip it inside the flat rate legal envelope if you want to save an additional fifty cents. Last I go to a completed eBay auction that has already been delivered with positive feedback and print another label. I change the name and address and get my eBay discount. In another thread I just sent a rack of charcoal starburst and some forest green as well and shipped them priority mail from portland to florida 2 day for $4.99. I also wrap each bullet with a layer of bubble wrap sort of like the vacuum seal above for added protection. It will still fit inside the chip holder. It eliminates any movement.View attachment 19495

 

[CaliKing21]

thanks for the information and sent my first pac out using USPS servive and was happy will the results compared to the P.O.

 

[CarsZAM]

Is USPS Flat Rate still the preferred option for shipping large sets (1000+) of poker chips? I didn't know if there might be a better option now due to the recent rate changes.

Thanks!

 

[ArielVer18]

Is USPS Flat Rate still the preferred option for shipping large sets (1000+) of poker chips? I didn't know if there might be a better option now due to the recent rate changes.

Thanks!

UPS Simple Rate is an option if you cannot fit chips into a USPS flat rate box (https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/shipping/simple-rate.page). You'll have to source your own box though.

 

[CarsZAM]

UPS Simple Rate is an option if you cannot fit chips into a USPS flat rate box (https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/shipping/simple-rate.page). You'll have to source your own box though.

Thank you! I will definitely look into this option.

 

[warma]

Having recently completed a cards mold GB, I wanted to share my adaptations for that purpose.

First, minor modifications:

I used the cut box in a box method. I found cramming a box inside another seemed to put too much stress on things. I split the box into two L shaped pieces by slicing off a small piece of the box at the joint, just a small piece, nothing scientific. (The blue arrow points to the red line in the next step.)

When fitting the L-shaped pieces in the box, I didn’t need a hammer to bash the corner, a quick bop of the corner against the ground did it for me.

Second, once the inner box was cut in two halves, I cut down the seam until I reached the red line on the outside of the box (see blue arrow above identifying the red line, see the completed cut in the circle below). I then used an old rack to help me with the crease (see arrow below). The crease is super important, and I found the red line on the outside of the box was just the right spot.

For MFRBs: I dropped Tina’s 500 chip box in the center. To hold Tina’s box in place and provide some cushion, I broke apart the unused Tina boxes, keeping a side piece attached to the top (or bottom) piece. I then folded it in half. It provides both the right amount of volume to fill up three sides (see red arrows) and some springiness to help absorb any side impacts. I then filled the top with the unused sides of the Tina box (see two short sides and one long side above, I think I put the remaining long piece underneath). I filled in the corners with the excess box pieces cut off above. You can also see the creases (blue arrow).

In a couple of cases where folks ordered up to 700 chips, I crossed my fingers and added those chips along the short edge in lieu of the extra padding. (They all survived.)

For the LFRB, I put the Tina box in a corner, and cut the cardboard chip dividers she provided length-wise along the second row, leaving a row of 5 and two roses of 5 with half a row. I then fit those along the sides of the Tina box (see below). This provides additional cushion from side impacts and helps stack the chips. If I didn’t need the entire space, I would leave the corners free. I found I could safely put 975 chips in a LFRB (500 in Tina’s box + 5 x 25 long one edge + 10 x 25 along the other edge + 4 x 25 in the corner gap).

The only loss I had was two (?) of the plastic wrappers busting open and spilling chips (and then only in one box).

To secure the LFRB, I used a variety of scrap materials from recycled newspaper, to box foam inserts, to my favorite- recycled wool insulation pulled from a shipment of frozen goods.

I did see the other method of really packing them in as well… I suspect we’re learning these things are nearly indestructible. With our 13 cartons shipped from Tina (each carton hold three 500-chip boxes) the only damage we had was one plastic wrapper splitting open. All chips were intact, no losses at all.

The fact that Tina added a few extras, along with the success rate, means you’ll likely have more extras than you need and can thus share them with the rest of the forum.

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Having recently completed a cards mold GB, I wanted to share my adaptations for that purpose.

First, minor modifications:

I used the cut box in a box method. I found cramming a box inside another seemed to put too much stress on things. I split the box into two L shaped pieces by slicing off a small piece of the box at the joint, just a small piece, nothing scientific. (The blue arrow points to the red line in the next step.)

View attachment 859412

When fitting the L-shaped pieces in the box, I didn’t need a hammer to bash the corner, a quick bop of the corner against the ground did it for me.

Second, once the inner box was cut in two halves, I cut down the seam until I reached the red line on the outside of the box (see blue arrow above identifying the red line, see the completed cut in the circle below). I then used an old rack to help me with the crease (see arrow below). The crease is super important, and I found the red line on the outside of the box was just the right spot.

View attachment 859410

For MFRBs: I dropped Tina’s 500 chip box in the center. To hold Tina’s box in place and provide some cushion, I broke apart the unused Tina boxes, keeping a side piece attached to the top (or bottom) piece. I then folded it in half. It provides both the right amount of volume to fill up three sides (see red arrows) and some springiness to help absorb any side impacts. I then filled the top with the unused sides of the Tina box (see two short sides and one long side above, I think I put the remaining long piece underneath). I filled in the corners with the excess box pieces cut off above. You can also see the creases (blue arrow).

In a couple of cases where folks ordered up to 700 chips, I crossed my fingers and added those chips along the short edge in lieu of the extra padding. (They all survived.)

View attachment 859413

For the LFRB, I put the Tina box in a corner, and cut the cardboard chip dividers she provided length-wise along the second row, leaving a row of 5 and two roses of 5 with half a row. I then fit those along the sides of the Tina box (see below). This provides additional cushion from side impacts and helps stack the chips. If I didn’t need the entire space, I would leave the corners free. I found I could safely put 975 chips in a LFRB (500 in Tina’s box + 5 x 25 long one edge + 10 x 25 along the other edge + 4 x 25 in the corner gap).

The only loss I had was two (?) of the plastic wrappers busting open and spilling chips (and then only in one box).

View attachment 859414

To secure the LFRB, I used a variety of scrap materials from recycled newspaper, to box foam inserts, to my favorite- recycled wool insulation pulled from a shipment of frozen goods.

I did see the other method of really packing them in as well… I suspect we’re learning these things are nearly indestructible. With our 13 cartons shipped from Tina (each carton hold three 500-chip boxes) the only damage we had was one plastic wrapper splitting open. All chips were intact, no losses at all.

The fact that Tina added a few extras, along with the success rate, means you’ll likely have more extras than you need and can thus share them with the rest of the forum.

I'm going to admit, I did not go to this much trouble when packing up the Aria's in my GB. I did not do any trimming of the inside box halves. I slid them in as is, and didn't have much trouble. A lot of my MFRBs had over 500 chips, so I used the USPS free padded FREs to put extra chips into, rolled them up tight and sealed them, and they fit the space left on the short end absolutely perfectly, allowing the contents to be VERY tight. Four or five rolls fit perfectly inside the PFREs. I did the same with the LFRBs using up to 3 PFREs around the "Tina" boxes. I did buy a large roll of kraft packing paper for the sides around the "Tina" boxes that did not have chips on them.

No one has told me that they had any shipping issues or broken or lost chips. I did hear of a couple of split outer boxes, but no issues with the inner box halves. Since no chips were loose inside the FRBs, and the contents were tight, there was no way for chips to escape.

Edit: I want to add that I didn't start taping until after I put the inner box into the outer box, thinking that it might be too tight if I taped up the outer box first. In fact on quite a few of them I didn't tape until all the contents were inside. Some of the boxes weren't too square, but once taped up that didn't matter. I did use A LOT of packing tape. 24 rolls for 47 boxes.

 

[codeman00]

Yeah I just shipped a couple of 650-700 chip lots out in medium flat rate boxes using the box in box doubling method and didn’t need to separate the inner box either. Rolling the chips in flat rate padded envelops is the way to go. Two rolls per envelope.

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Yeah I just shipped a couple of 650-700 chip lots out in medium flat rate boxes using the box in box doubling method and didn’t need to separate the inner box either. Rolling the chips in flat rate padded envelops is the way to go. Two rolls per envelope.

If you got 700 cards mold in a medium, then I'm impressed! I only did a couple boxes over 600 and no more than 650.

 

[codeman00]

If you got 700 cards mold in a medium, then I'm impressed! I only did a couple boxes over 600 and no more than 650.

703 Majestic China clays…but still!

 

[warma]

Yeah, seems like they’re indestructible. This being my first, I might have gone overboard

 

[justsomedude]

Tried to ship some chips out this morning... got a notice on PayPal that I need to sign up with ShippingStation before I can print any labels.

WTF is this? And what happened to paypal.com/shipnow?

 

[Himewad]

Tried to ship some chips out this morning... got a notice on PayPal that I need to sign up with ShippingStation before I can print any labels.

WTF is this? And what happened to paypal.com/shipnow?

They announced last year that their shipping platform was being moved to ShipStation. Fortunately, you can still pay for your shipping using your PayPal funds.

I've been using ShipStation for a while now. The only annoying part is that I used to be able to ship small packages internationally cheaper. Now the minimum prices are higher regardless of how small the package.

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Tried to ship some chips out this morning... got a notice on PayPal that I need to sign up with ShippingStation before I can print any labels.

WTF is this? And what happened to paypal.com/shipnow?

They've had notices for months that this was coming. I did it earlier this week. It's relatively painless and the input screens are pretty similar. Also the same discounted shipping prices.

 

[justsomedude]

They've had notices for months that this was coming. I did it earlier this week. It's relatively painless and the input screens are pretty similar. Also the same discounted shipping prices.

They announced last year that their shipping platform was being moved to ShipStation. Fortunately, you can still pay for your shipping using your PayPal funds.

I've been using ShipStation for a while now. The only annoying part is that I used to be able to ship small packages internationally cheaper. Now the minimum prices are higher regardless of how small the package.

So I just need to suck it up and sign up?

 

[Himewad]

So I just need to suck it up and sign up?

Yup

 

[Pinkdan]

Does anyone else wince when you see someone getting screwed over with shipping costs? I was in a ups dropping off my prepaid label package and this guy was trying to ship his wife’s maid of honor dress. The guy said “it’s gonna cost $100 or more for me to box it up and ship it”. I almost told that guy to run away but I guess he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. Oof

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Does anyone else wince when you see someone getting screwed over with shipping costs? I was in a ups dropping off my prepaid label package and this guy was trying to ship his wife’s maid of honor dress. The guy said “it’s gonna cost $100 or more for me to box it up and ship it”. I almost told that guy to run away but I guess he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. Oof

That is sad. I guess those guys have to make money somehow. I feel kinda bad dropping stuff off with them all the time and never spending a dime.

 

[ArielVer18]

The only annoying part is that I used to be able to ship small packages internationally cheaper. Now the minimum prices are higher regardless of how small the package.

Try simple export rate with Pirateship

 

[BearMetal]

Does anyone else wince when you see someone getting screwed over with shipping costs? I was in a ups dropping off my prepaid label package and this guy was trying to ship his wife’s maid of honor dress. The guy said “it’s gonna cost $100 or more for me to box it up and ship it”. I almost told that guy to run away but I guess he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. Oof

Every time I ship something to our friends up North in CA ...