Your quilt is quite amazing! And, yes, you will need receipts in order to place an insurance claim, if that a becomes necessary. Shipping a quilt is a daunting project!

Having heard many post office employees over the years talk about orphan packages, my/their advice is to tuck a copy of the mailing label inside the quilt inside the plastic bag inside the box. It doesn't have to be another mailing label, per se. A piece of paper with identical info will do the trick.

FWIW, post office employees feel absolutely awful when they must deal with an obviously treasured object that they simply can't deliver. They beg us all to include a copy of the mailing label info inside every package we ship.

1) Take lots of photos & get an AQS appraisal.
2) Sign up for package tracking. Insurers rarely pay out unless they know where the package was lost/stolen.
3) Buy at least enough shipping insurance to cover my homeowner's deductible. UPS rate is $0.90/$100.
4) Check homeowner's policy to see what's covered.*

*I have a home & home business policy that covers my quilts up to $10K without a Fine Arts Rider. It also covers up to a set amount of damage/loss from shipping. You will want to check that (a) it's covered at your home, (b) it's covered both domestically & internationally in transit [shipping & customs], and (c) whether it covers the full replacement value of the quilt.

With Declared Value insurance, your best bet is to have them pack the quilt. Otherwise, unless damage to the box is noted when delivery is accepted, they are not liable for any damages. This option does cost more so you will have to weigh out the risk vs. benefit. My grandmother found in addition to the added insurance coverage, fewer items were lost or damaged when she paid for this service. Here's the link to UPS's Pack & Ship Artwork service: https://www.theupsstore.com/pack-shi...ch_phr=artwork

By the way, stunning quilt! Reminds me of my favorite quilt artist, Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry.

That is one spectacular quilt!

This happened to my sister in Kentucky. She made a quilt and sent it to her daughter in Texas,had it insured with the post office for $200.( the max there )Her daughter didn't get the package, they traced the package in Memphis with nothing in it. She didn't save every stinking little receipt for the fabric ,through the years(who does?)So there was nothing they could do.So why pay for insurance when they don't give you all the details before hand.some one in Memphis made off with a beautiful hand made,hand quilted quilt.

I recently sent a quilt to Australia & they have tracking all the way. I was surprised about that. But put the name & address inside the pkg too.

Keep in mind, the receiver in New Zealand (or any foreign country) will have to pay customs duty on the value you put on the customs form. It can sometimes be as high as the value of the object. Talk it over with your receiver...a higher value item, even when marked as a gift can still be required to pay the import fees...

And beware sending by fedex or ups type shippers, they will also charge the recipient a brokerage fee. I have a friend in Canada that had to pay a $40.00 brokerage fee for a box of two battings

Thanks for the compliments!

This quilt was a personal test of my resolve to create something colorful, super complex and challenging to my relatively inexperinced quilting knowledge. I used over 100 fabrics, an expensive batting and when I mentioned a HEFTY custom quilting charge, months later I am still suffering from sticker shock as to the cost. It sounds to me that unless you are willing to surrender your quilt to the subjective taste of an arbitrary appraiser, deal with the fact that it might be valued at far less than the cost to make it and still possibly have someone in the process refusing to pay for a possible loss...that this is still largely a roll of the dice. Especially for a guy, who is not a name brand quilter, just trying to get most of his money back in fixed costs and charge a few dollars per hour for the sewing.

Out of curiosity, I went to the post office and for a 9 pound quilt, insured... but not excessively compared to actual costs, without any AQS appraisal...the total cost was a staggering $450. I get the feeling that either I am incredibly too slow a quilter, pay too much for high end materials, have an invisible target on me when it comes to being seriosly overcharged for outside labor, naieve as to pricing and quite likely guilty of everything I have previously mentioned.

Someone mentioned keeping it...if it weren't for the fact that this does not "fit" in my home...it would never be even considered for sale.:thumbdown:

The appraisals are for the replacement value of the quilt, so it shouldn't be for less than it cost you to make the quilt. The appraisals on my quilts all took into consideration the materials, the amount of time, and the value I added to it with the quilting. The amount they appraise for is considerably more than I paid - I can't afford myself. :)

Janet

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that gave me a laugh.