The most bizarre shipments of all time

bizarre shipments

The American postal service has had to put up with many mischievous individuals since it was formed in 1775. These are probably the most unbelievable shipments ever for the US Postal Service and probably all other postal services too.

Sending people by post

A few years before the American Civil War, a slave from one of the southern slave states wanted to liberate himself…by post. With the help of two friends, he sent himself in a postal package to the city of Philadelphia. There he would be a free man. The man travelled for 27 hours. He landed more than once on his head, but eventually arrived safe, sound and free, in Pennsylvania.

Buildings in the post

In 1916, when a local businessman wanted to construct a bank building in the city of Vernal, in barren Utah, he had the best bricks brought over. Around 80,000 bricks made their way through the American postal system. After this incident, the postal service changed its rules. People were no longer able to send more than 90 kg per day.

Other bizarre shipments

Every day, postal and express delivery services send many unique, exclusive and bizarre objects. Naturally, only the sender and the receiver usually know what is in the package. However, sometimes there are really weird shipments that even appear in the press.

  • The astronomically expensive Hope diamond with a value around 1 million Dollars in 1958. The shipment cost 145 Dollars, which was equivalent to 1,140 euros in 2016 and mainly for insurance costs.
  • As an experiment, an American once sent a tooth. The tooth arrived ten days later with a note: “Please be advised that human remains may not be transported through the mail, but we assumed this to be of sentimental value, and made an exception in your case.” That’s nice.

DHL transports giant pandas

DHL also occasionally sees one or two unusual packages. For instance, DHL had the honour of transporting two live giant pandas, Hao Hao and Xing Hui, from China to Belgium. Of course they were not sent in a cardboard box, but travelled comfortably and safely on board a DHL Boeing 767.

Inspired by MentalFloss.com