Carl got me to switch from US Postal Service so I've been shipping UPS Ground. 4 bad experiences in the past year have convinced me that the US postal service on a relative basis may be pretty good:
1) Shipped RedBob here a 7" Brooke. Per tracking it got two UPS stations down the line then disappeared from the planet. I sent pictures and exact weight and they found nothing. Got $100 back and my shipping costs refunded
2) At the same time I shipped an 8" cannon ball to a guy in Washington state. It made it as far as RedBob's Brooke did too, then vanished from the planet too. Got another $100 from UPS.
3) Fellow shipped me his artillery collection. 14 of 15 boxes arrived. 15th was a nice marked 8" ball that left the planet and has not been seen. Even though box 9 of 15 was the missing one and all the others were labelled with UPS labels 1 of 15, 2 of 15, etc., UPS had no records of it and we got $0
4) Today, I was to receive a dug trunion strap, and when it didn't show I looked up on the tracking system and got this lovely note (my underlining) after a bunch of clicks: