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Lexington, Ky

As an insider to the postal system.......

The postal system has new machines in larger cities called Flat Sequence Sorters (FSS). Flats for the most part are defined as being 3/4 thick or less. The FSS is an automated machine that doesn't care what's written on the outside of the package. Your window clerk can make all the promises in the world regarding how your bubble will be handled but once it's in the mail stream, it's out of his/her control. The machines make the decision down stream.

As your mail piece travels down stream, it is eventually combined into mixed mail containers that can have as many as 700 mail pieces of vary weights and sizes co-mingled. These containers eventually make it to a dumper, a machine that lifts the container about 3 feet in the air and "spills" the mail on a belt....best hope that your small bubble comes out last.

Take Big City Grower's advice, use the $5.95 Priority Small Flat Rate Box. They provide protection against the dumper, hard to lose them in the mail stream, $50 free insurance, no worry about short postage and free Delivery Tracking. If your Post Office has a self serve kiosk in the lobby, by all means use it, you can process your own transactions in less than 5 minutes.

For what it's worth, if you go the parcel route and use your own box and decide to send it Parcel Post (Standard Mail), you're only saving pennies these days and losing 3 or more days in transit time. If you add $50 insurance to a Parcel Post package, you're losing money compared to the $5.95 Priority Small Flat Rate Box.

12/4/2015 10:37:17 AM

Lexington, Ky

Stop sending the traditional stamped bubble within a bubble. Send the grower of your choice a small box with a Priorty Small Flat Rate Box enclosed. You can "mail" these to yourself just like a bubble. You're box within a box will weigh less than 13 ounces and will travel at the 1st class rate, under $3.

12/4/2015 10:44:33 AM

Ukiah, Mendocino county, California

Good advice Team Wexler, and thank you.

12/4/2015 10:22:59 PM

Hot West Tennessee

THey/we are having big big problems with FFS Machines. The main things they run on them are the average sale catalogs. Like your standard 8x11 Seed catalogs etc. The over, under, thin and thick are reaking havoc and they stay down more than running. No remendy for the near future. They are focusing on parcels for now. Thats were the money is.

12/6/2015 10:18:51 PM

Hot West Tennessee

Oh yea pad your small box well to prevent crushed seeds. They are all sorted with the big heavy ones . Just my 2 cents.

12/6/2015 10:28:24 PM

South Hero, VT

Here's a video of how the mail is sorted. Everything that isn't a letter, magazine/large envelope gets lumped/dumped together into large post-cons. Big, heavy packages end up on top of small, light packages. The smaller packages, such as bubbles, are sorted by clerks into white boxes at the post office, and letter carriers sequence the packages in trays for delivery along with letters and magazines/catalogs.

Then you get your mail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX3g2i2BnxM

12/7/2015 11:56:16 AM

JACKSON, WISCONSIN. ; )

I had 10 bubbles sitting here.. 3 went out in there bubbles the rest I put into boxes... If a high value seeds gets crushed and there are no more of them why even try a bubble .. Boxes are the safe bet.. I hope all who see those boxes know I cared more about the seed than 5.95... Grows them big

12/8/2015 9:39:58 AM

JACKSON, WISCONSIN. ; )

I also folded up those said bubbles and placed them in the box... Clubs need money so why waste it on a bubble and postage.

12/8/2015 9:40:57 AM

Weatherman

Spend the extra money, some people are tighter than two coats of paint on a wall.lol

12/8/2015 1:19:10 PM