While she was sleeping this morning, I packed two boxes of plates. I tried to organize them to contain the most expensive plates first. Each offer was for a set of related plates, and there is a piece of paper that I printed at home for each offer. So I picked the groups that would fit into each box.
The first box has plates
| A075 | $3 | SILENT NIGHT |
| A077 | $8 | A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN |
| A079 | $5 | TARA: SCARLETT'S TRUE LOVE |
| A080 | $5 | TARA: SCARLETT'S TRUE LOVE |
| A091 | $2 | BONAPARTE TRAVERSANT LES ALPS |
| A105 | $4 | WINTER-A BOY MEETS HIS DOG |
| A106 | $10 | SPRING-ADVENTURES BETWEEN ADVENTURES |
| A107 | $6 | SUMMER-A MYSTERIOUS MALADY |
| A108 | $13 | AUTUMN-PRIDE OF PARENTHOOD |
| A119 | $14 | SUMMER-FLYING HIGH |
| A121 | $6 | GAILY SHARING VINTAGE TIMES-WINTER |
| A122 | $15 | SWEET SONG SO YOUNG-SUMMER |
| A123 | $13 | FLOWERS IN TENDER BLOOM-SPRING |
| A124 | $13 | FONDLY DO WE REMEMBER-AUTUMN |
| A159 | $3 | SILENT NIGHT |
| A190 | $5 | LE DIVORCE |
| A195 | $1 | THE PILGRIMS THANKSGIVING |
| A196 | $1 | THE PILGRIMS THANKSGIVING |
18 plates for a total of $127. This is 28 pounds in a 22x14x14 box.
The second box has
| A073 | $3 | ST BASILS-MOSCOW |
| A082 | $4 | CASE OF THE FOLDING FANS |
| A129 | $3 | GRANDPA'S GIFT |
| A171 | $4 | THREE POOLS MIRRORING MOON |
| A173 | $2 | FLY-IN PEAK |
| A174 | $2 | ANCESTORS OF TEA |
| A177 | $2 | TWELVE MONTHS |
| A183 | $2 | PHOENIX MOUNTAIN |
8 plates for a total of $22. This was 14 pounds, in a 17x11x11 box.
I tried to price things out on the internet web pages for USPS.com and UPS.com. It looked like the least expensive might be UPS ground for $30.42 for the larger one, so I took them them to a PostNet facility that the UPS site suggested as being closest. But the guy there said it was around $45. He commented that they were only a feeder to UPS and it should be less at the UPS store itself. The UPS store was just down the street, so I went on down there. That guy gave the same basic price. He said the PostNet store should have higher costs, and figured that the two of them were using different measurements, but then said that the size didn't matter and both of them where using the same weight -- 28 pounds, so he had no explanation.
But this was still much higher than the $30 I was expecting, and more than the $35 that the USPS web site said it would cost thru the postal service. So I went home and got a magazine to read and then went back to the post office. It actually went very quickly -- less than a half an hour. The big one cost $36.22 -- 28 lb, 0.4 oz -- slightly higher than expected. The smaller one was $21.14, again slightly higher than the $20.27 on the web page (14 lb, 1.0 oz). Maybe the extra ounce or less is what takes the price up. (yep, going back and computing it again, but 14+1 oz instead of just 14 lbs explains the difference).
But this raises a very significant problem. While the first box should return $127 for shipping costs of $36.22, a profit of $90, the second box should return $22 with a shipping cost of $21.14 -- a profit of 86 cents. While 86 cents is 86 cents, is this going to be cost effective? The average price per plate in the second box was $22/8 = 2.75, and so suggests that a plate with an offer of less than $3 does not justify the shipping.
On the other hand, it is also clear that with postage of $21 for 14 lbs and $36 for $28 lbs, the cost is non-linear. I should try to get a big box and put the most expensive plates into it. The first box had 18 plates, for a shipping cost of $2 per plate; the second box had 8 plates for a cost of $2.65 per plate. (Of course, the weight per plate for the first box was apparently smaller too.)
I also went to Jerry's and got some exterior flood lights to replace the 4 that were burned out.
And there were some stamps, French postage stamps from the 70's and 80's on wrappings around some of the plates, and I posted those on Craig's List and Nick came by and picked them up.
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