Poorly Packaged Press Sheets

I need to sound off about the poorly packaged press sheets. It is getting so bad that if you actually get a press sheet without dings it is like hitting the lotto, since so many are damaged in shipping.

At one time, when the modern press sheets were started, the sheets were secured with sections of glassine envelopes in the corners and then taped to cardboard which prevented the sheet from bouncing around in the tube.

now, all the press sheets are insecurely wrapped in flimsy white paper and thrown in the tube. this causes them to bounce around and get dings. All they would have to do to prevent this is tighten the rolled up white paper containing the press sheet to a 1" diameter and put some light rubber bands around the paper. By tightening the sheets this way, they don't bounce out of the paper and get dinged.

Has anyone received a MADE IN AMERICA press sheet without any creases, dents and dings? You have a rarity if you do. Especially the bottom pane or the top pane is almost always dinged.

Much as I admire the photographs of Lewis Hine, one of the great documentary photographers, I would not buy these sheets from the USPS if the packing is so poor.

Terry

I agree that the packaging needs to be improved. I ordered the Made in America Press Sheet myself (the ONLY Press Sheet I've ever ordered) because I wanted all of the selvage designs. Fortunately, my example came reasonably well packaged, a slight "ding" as you may call it, but nothing more and nothing serious enough that would prompt me to return it for replacement.

On the other hand, the US Postal Service has started a new collecting craze with some who prize these things to the point that they are potentially losing customers by not packaging the items better. It seems to me it is counter-productive not to package these things well in the first place, as the cost to return/replace the item is much more expensive than to just package the things right in the first place.

There is, however, a little known mention in the USA Philatelic Catalog that for a premium price of $2.00 as a "custom order" one can request that shipment of Press Sheets be mailed flat, although I haven't heard from many collectors if that approach significantly improves the chances that receipt of the Press Sheets are delivered without "dings and dents".

There are other threads discussing this very point. I have returned damaged sheets and have had them replaced with... More damaged sheets.

My baseball all-stars press sheet had the entire right side dinged up. Not a complete deal breaker, since I was going to slice it up, but still insanely annoying. I never called the USPS, because they only made 1,000 of these things, I believe, and it had been sold out for months. I didn't expect them to have any extras to return.