Media Mail medical learning flash cards

[ohm_eater]

The postal regulation for Media Mail is DMM 173.4.1.

Let's get right to the point…eBay made an error in judgment on how to ship what I just sold.

I sold some medical study cards with graphs and charts for learning and studying medicine.

it qualifies as USPS Media mail.  See letter "g" below.

But eBay blanked it out the option to use media mail.

Here is part of the Content Standards for Media Mail

  4.1 Qualified Items.  Only these items may be mailed at the Media Mail prices:

a. —  "Books, including books issued to supplement other books, of at least eight
printed pages, consisting wholly of reading matter or scholarly bibliography..."

b.  —  16-millimeter or narrower width films…"

c.  —  "Printed music…"

d.  —  "Printed objective test materials and their accessories…"

e.  —  "Sound recordings…"

f.   —  "Playscripts and manuscripts for books, periodicals, and music.

g.   —  "Printed educational reference charts designed to instruct or train individuals
for improving or developing their capabilities. Each chart must be a single
printed sheet of information designed for educational reference. The
information on the chart, which may be printed on one or both sides of the
sheet, must be conveyed primarily by graphs, diagrams, tables, or other
nonnarrative matter. An educational reference chart is normally but not
necessarily devoted to one subject. A chart on which the information is
conveyed primarily by textual matter in a narrative form does not qualify as a
printed educational reference chart for mailing at the Media Mail prices even
if it includes graphs, diagrams, or tables. Examples of qualifying charts
include maps produced primarily for educational reference, tables of
mathematical or scientific equations, noun declensions or verb conjugations
used in the study of languages, periodic table of elements, botanical or
zoological tables, and other tables used in the study of science."

h.  —  "Loose-leaf pages and their binders consisting of medical information for
distribution to doctors, hospitals, medical schools, and medical students.

i.   —  Computer-readable media containing prerecorded information and guides or
scripts prepared solely for use with such media."

[city*satins]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashcard

There seems to be some wiggle room in defining Flash Cards.

I dunno.  I feel like a need a set of flash cards to master what MEDIA MAIL includes.

[anthology-of-treasures]

That 2013 link is referring to a single customer case based upon its own unique set of circumstances.

That is not a defacto ruling that all flashcards can be shipped.

You mean to tell me if I go to the dollar store and buy some Chinese made animal flash cards intended for kids that they can be shipped via Media Mail. I don't think so because they still have to meet ALL the other mailing guidelines for Media Mail. 

Googling the above ruling, last updated in 2014.

https://pe.usps.com/text/csr/PS-017.htm

It refers back to the Media Mail shipping guidlines.

The fact that it qualifies for one or more of the guidlines is meaningless if its fails one. It clearly fails the narrative content guideline. This is a case of all or none.

[a_c_green]

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@anthology-of-treasures wrote:

That 2013 link is referring to a single customer case based upon its own unique set of circumstances.

That is not a defacto ruling that all flashcards can be shipped.

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Actually it would appear that it is. "Flash Cards-instructional" is stated as eligible for Media Mail, with no further elaboration, and PS 017 is cited as the reference. PS 017 in turn refers to certain sections of the DMM.

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@anthology-of-treasures wrote:

You mean to tell me if I go to the dollar store and buy some Chinese made animal flash cards intended for kids that they can be shipped via Media Mail. I don't think so because they still have to meet ALL the other mailing guidelines for Media Mail.

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The guidelines for Media Mail cover all kinds of items that flash cards are not. It's a matter of focusing on the rulings involving flash cards. The intended age group doesn't matter. If it's a set of instructional flash cards for kids to learn how to identify animals, then it qualifies.

[mr_lincoln]

@a_c_green, @ohm_eater , @anthology-of-treasures , @city*satins , @nobody*s_perfect 

I'm thinking of the kids and flash cards ... let 'em ship Media Mail so they get their educational help ...

[ohm_eater]

mr_lincoln. Thanks. I did walk in to the Post Office and asked if it qualified and showed a photo of the item I'm mailing. They said okay. And I did up-load the tracking number to ebay.

[ohm_eater]

Study cards is most correct; to flash a question such as explain Lymph Capillaries.
The answer would be somewhat complex and a Flash answer would be ?? keep a consistent volume and pressure of interstitial fluid…etc.

[ohm_eater]

Show me the money. Does ebay get a % of shipping costs?

[ohm_eater]

How qualified is a postal person, at the counter, to judge media mail covering a medical subject that they don't know anything about?
I did read on the USPS web suite that any postal employee can open it!

[nobody*s_perfect]

But when one USPS employee has inspected a package's contents and has determined that it's eligible  for MM, they have a stamp to indicate this so other USPS employees don't bother opening and inspecting it later on. So the clerk at the PO should have stamped this package to show that it was inspected and judged to be eligible. End of story.

[anthology-of-treasures]

Flash Cards-instructional" is stated as eligible for Media Mail, with no further elaboration, and PS 017 is cited as the reference. PS 017 in turn refers to certain sections of the DMM.

That is what I said twice now.

You mean to tell me if I go to the dollar store and buy some Chinese made animal flash cards intended for kids that they can be shipped via Media Mail. I don't think so because they still have to meet ALL the other mailing guidelines for Media Mail.

I am not focusing on kids. I am focusing on going into the dollar store and buying a deck of large print memory cards and calling them educational flash cards to get Media Mail rates. Using that logic I should be able to ship decks of playing cards also as they are really flash cards that teach kids math and logic.

[anthology-of-treasures]

I thinking about not subsidizing someone else.

[a_c_green]

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@anthology-of-treasures wrote:

You mean to tell me if I go to the dollar store and buy some Chinese made animal flash cards intended for kids that they can be shipped via Media Mail. I don't think so because they still have to meet ALL the other mailing guidelines for Media Mail.

I am not focusing on kids. I am focusing on going into the dollar store and buying a deck of large print memory cards and calling them educational flash cards to get Media Mail rates. Using that logic I should be able to ship decks of playing cards also as they are really flash cards that teach kids math and logic.

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Playing cards are not flash cards.