Lessons learned from ebay...shipping cabinet cards

I bought my Yao Ming cabinet card in part because the seller was offering $3.00 shipping.  I've seen other cabinet cards for sale and have seen the shipping go as high as $6-7 dollars.  I assume that the higher priced shippers would use a method I might have used.  If somebody put me in front of a cabinet card and told me to ship it, I probably would put it in a hard plastic top-loader made for 8X10 photos.  But those are expensive - and add weight.

But this person selling the Yao found a way to ship it for $3.00.  I was sold.  And I was really impressed by the condition that my card arrived in.

Here's the rundown:

1)  Take the cabinet card.  Pretty obvious step I know.  I just like the way the card looks in my hands.  Big hands are meant to collect big cards.

2)  Take a Priority Mail hard cardboard envelope.  It's the Legal Size.

3)  Cut the envelope exactly in half.

4)  Take the Cabinet card and slide it into one of the halves.  It won't fill it completely, but it won't be a problem.

5)  Take the half with the card and fit it all the way into the other half.  The second half will bend out enough to all for the first half to fit all the way in.  Now you've got double strength cardboard protecting the card.

6)  I think this part is optional.  But the shipper found some extra bubble wrap and put some on each side of the envelope.  I think it would've shipped fine with the double-sided cardboard.  But I guess you can't be too safe.  If you have some extra bubble wrap, throw it in.

7)  Stick that sucker in the envelope and you're done.  No giant plastic top-loaders and you've got shipping for about $3.00.  If anyone has cabinet cards they want to sell but didn't want to put them out there because of worries about shipping - like me - this is a great way to get it done.  Now I may have to go dig out some advertising panels that I could stand to part with.