Mailing baseball cards in thick top loaders

Question

I print Ebay's 60 cent label and mail single baseball cards in regular thickness top loaders and PWE via the USPS with no problems. However, I'm concerned about mailing cards in thick top loaders the same way because they aren't as flexible and I'm worried the USPS machine will destroy the envelope. I would like to pay the USPS non-machinable surcharge but Ebay doesn't offer it. Does anyone mail cards in thick top loaders in PWE and have you had any problems?

shipscript · Answer

@fiacoordinator

"Non-machinable" is not an option because, if it can't feed through the high speed sorting equipment, eBay's proprietary code won't get scanned at all and there won't be any tracking. In that case, you might as well put a postage stamp on the PWE (plain white envelope) with the same result.

I have not handled a thick top-loader, so don't have a feel for it. But, in general, the envelope should be able to bend around a large coffee can.

Here are some pictures of how the envelope will travel:

The teeth between the rollers flip up to eject fat (or poorly oriented) envelopes that won't fit under the rollers. You can see letters flying up and out of the way.

Postal Sorting

The high speed letter router is a blur of flippers that direct envelopes left or right (like railroad switches), based on the zip that is read at high speed.

Because your stiff top-loader is going to have some abrupt edges, consider a tapering option like the file folder shown below. By cutting the material to the size of the envelope, it creates a thin leading edge that ramps up and over that abrupt product edge that could jam, thus shoe-horning the envelope through the feeder.

Shipping - eBay standard envelope

While I show a coffee cup for testing flexibility, the USPS spec for the routing equipment is more the diameter of a coffee can, as can be seen in the "router" image.