The Feasibility of Posting Precious Metals

Over the last few days I’ve done a Prize Delivery Follow Up for the Monster Raffle that we held back on October 1st. I had thought 2 months was enough time for the “Dust to Settle” so to speak and for the most part it was. However there are a couple of things that make me question whether it’s still actually feasible to run future Monster Raffles the same way we always have...

There was one prize which was sent internationally and appears to have been lost in transit somewhere. With no parcel tracking it’s probably disappeared into the bowels of a Customs Agency somewhere and a second prize or compensation from the @ssg-community account will need to be sent. There were a couple of others who were so surprised by the exorbitant postage costs that they agreed to “Settle” for a higher value Crypto transfer and not post the metals at all. For what it's worth, I think this is very sensible.

I have picked up a few other comments about how Postal Services have generally become more expensive and less reliable to the point where paying to send a 1 oz piece of Silver internationally makes no sense. So I ask - Do we need to rethink how we compile and distribute our Monster Raffle Prizes?

One idea I had months ago was to try to line up the Monster Raffle with the Las Vegas Meetup in March. The idea being people could bring their metals and winners could collect prizes on the spot. Zero Postage for participants sounds ideal. However, not everyone can get to Las Vegas and for those who are IN Las Vegas do they really want to be spending precious time sitting on a Discord channel watching random numbers? If I was there I’d probably be out and about partying up! A follow up idea would be to hold the MR just BEFORE the Las Vegas meetup and then people take relevant prizes along to distribute. Food for thought…

Another idea I’ve had is that we could try and get people from similar regions to pool their prizes together. We could have a Canadian Prize, a West Coast US Prize, East Coast US, maybe a European one. This would be fewer but larger prizes that could be more cost effectively posted, tracked and insured internationally. It might also encourage Stackers to meet up locally and form little Hubs in their respective regions. I know the US and Canadian peoples have local meetups semi-regularly. Is THIS the way we could expand?

I’m up for suggestions. I’m personally pretty isolated here in Australia so still more likely to toss in some Crypto to bolster a prize pool from somewhere else. This could also be a really cool way for other geographically isolated members to take part cost-effectively. What do the people of SGS think? Let's get some ideas on the table!