It was registered mail and insured for $1 million. Estimates now say it’s worth $250 million. You would think it was sent by special courier but I suppose the owner was too cheap to pay for that.
At the Tower of London in the Jewel House there’s a similar story about the Koh-i-Noor diamond, but weirdly I can’t find it online and Wikipedia contradicts what I read at the Tower, going with it really being sent by ship. The story at the Tower of London was that the diamond was supposedly sent by ship, and the people guarding it encountered pirates and had lots of adventures on the way, imagining they were guarding the jewel, whereas the real diamond was actually sent by Royal Mail and collected by an ordinary postman who had no idea what he was delivering to the Tower.
Guess I’ll have to get a photo of the display next time I’m at the Tower in person.
You may be thinking of the Cullinan Diamond, which was sent by post from Africa.
US government SECRET information can be mailed as well.
Are there any examples of people mailing super expensive things through the inexpensive post office and getting lost?
Dunno about super expensive, but the number of packets of passport applications and naturalization paperwork I have seen burst open and scattered in, around, and under the machinery at my plant is nothing short of heart-rending.
I should probably grow a thicker skin and trust the professionalism and expertise of the folks who carry out NIXIE operations.
Oh no! I have to mail in my passport renewal application in a few months and was worried already before reading this.
It’s amazing what accomodations can be made for desirable items in the mail.
I once corresponded with a gentleman in Latvia, while it was still under Soviet domination. We shared an interest in the National Geographic magazine.
One Christmas I sent him the gift of a fruitcake. He’d said that food items often went missing as postal workers would steal them. The company sending the fruitcake had a plain box, not a festive mailing box, that it would ship items in, if so desired. So the fruitcake got through.
Other sorts of mail were censored. He had a subscription to the National Geographic, but issues with articles about space achievements often didn’t show up. Or the issue with “Finland: Plucky Neighbor of Soviet Russia.”
My aunt/uncle lived in Kenya and they got a Christmas card in August. They thought it was early but it was from the previous Christmas, mailed from the US. This was in early 80s so maybe it’s better now.
What’s the conflict between “sent by mail” and “sent by ship”? How do you think the mail is carried over intercontinental distances?
By plane?
When I studied in Russia in 1989, one of my classmates received a care package from her family. One of the chocolate bars had distinctly human bite marks in it.
My grandmother also sent me her usual $5 bill in my birthday card that year. (Which was technically illegal, I believe - I think it was forbidden to transmit Western currency outside of official controls?). I received it with no problem.
In the case of the Cullinan Diamond, the decoy was sent with great fanfare by ship, in the safe and accompanied by multiple guards. The real stone went anonymously by regular post.
The Canadian dollar coin features a loon and has been called the loonie ever since it was issued. But that wasn’t the first design. That had–IIRC–a beaver. A die was mailed through Canada Post from the mint in Ottawa to the one in Winnipeg. It never arrived. So they scrapped that design and used the loon.
It was assumed that someone had intercepted the package and was preparing to mint his own counterfeits, although no explanation ever emerged. I assume there was an investigation.
In mid-late 1970s, before many Mexicans were in NYC, I regularly shipped cans of jalapeño peppers to a friend in Brooklyn who had introduced me to vindaloo curries. Half the packages never arrived. I blame spice junkies.
Most monetarily valuable thing I’ve mailed, certified+registered, was a mid-six-figures cheque. It arrived. Whew.
Most emotionally valuable thing I’ve mailed was a seashell sculpture I sent to Grandma for her birthday - but it arrived shattered. My little heart was shattered, too.
Yes, military and other government secrets are mailed. When I was a RATT-man (radio-teletype operator) I wrote erotic songs for my gf on the teleptype, punched on paper tape, rolled and loaded in 35mm canisters, and mailed. She said they never appear to have been opened and resealed. Those COULD have been photos inside the missile silo, or Top Secret messages. “Da, Comrade, the launch code is…” yada yada.
No, a Bi-Plane.
It was a long time ago.
Yes, aircraft can be many-gendered.
[From the trivia desk]
After Fort Knox was built, it was filled with 5000 tonnes of gold sent by registered mail.
The Treasury was billed at the fourth-class rate plus insurance. (They were allowed to pay by check rather than purchasing postage stamps.)
I had the post office smash a film canister I sent to be developed. Around the same time a developer lost a roll of film.
Oh man I’ve had “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show“ stuck in my head for the last day or so, so I read the title as “NEIL Diamond was mailed to the Smithsonian!”
I had this image of a big crate arriving, with this low mumbling coming out:
Hot August night
And the leaves hanging down
And the grass on the ground smelling sweet…
Then a banging from inside the crate as the voce gets louder…
Sits a ragged tent
Where there ain’t no trees
And that gospel group
Telling you and me
Then Neil Diamond bustin’ out of the top of the crate in his full spangly-shirt and sideburns regalia hollering:
It’s love, Brother Love say
Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show
(Halle, halle)
Pack up the babies
And grab the old ladies
And everyone goes…
The OP, while interesting, was a bit of a letdown.