How to save on international shipping from USA?

I am trying to do international trades, but the shipping charges end up ruining the trade for me. Shipping, for me, goes over $10, sometimes as high as $30 to ship overseas. Is there anything I can do to minimize my shipping costs? I am using USPS.

thank in advance.

Canada has the same problem. There's not much way around it as the rates are what they are.

Unless you're willing to put them into an envelope and call it letter mail I'm not sure there are cheaper options. At least there aren't in the great white north.

Smaller swaps for higher value coins, I guess.

It's pretty easy to keep the price below $10 if you can mail the coins in a bubble envelope as an International Large Envelope. If the clerk decides it's a package (usually because they feel "something" inside rather than going by the physical dimensions like the rules say), the cost goes way up.

I've tried mailing in an ordinary paper envelope, but 50% of the time the clerks feel the coins and tell me it can't go as a letter "because it's not a letter". Then I have to take it to another post office and hope I can pass it there. So for the $1 or $2 difference between Letter and Large Envelope, I've pretty much resigned myself to doing all but the smallest international swaps in a bubble envelope at the Large Envelope rate. It's much harder for clerks to feel that there are coins inside as well.

As you've realized, the shipping costs make the majority of overseas trade unrealistic. Swapping $50 worth of coins outside of the US will end up costing me around $80, even more if there is any kind of "lost" mail drama. It just doesn't make any kind of sense when I can make the same swap within the US for $52 including tracking and $50 worth of insurance.

I still make swaps over the water but I stick to higher value trades or very small swaps.

It's possible to send coins by regular letter post for just over a dollar for up to one oz. but of course there is no tracking. For too many people, no tracking = free coins. So it's important that you can have trust in your overseas partner. The first thing I check when considering a swap offer is for any hint of regular "lost in the mail" fairytales in their feedback history. That's someone who is either a liar or living in a part of the world where the postal service is little more than organized theft. Either way, avoid them.

You can conceal coins in thin layers of tissue paper or cut out cardboard but you have to keep the thickness to less than 1/4 inch to avoid surcharges and customs forms. Send a photo of the PO counter receipt or the front of the stamped, addressed envelope for your partner's peace of mind and proof that you actually mailed it. I've done this many times without problems because I only consider overseas swaps with those of impeccable pedigree and on my terms only. Honest people don't need tracking numbers.