Excellent post with a lot of good suggestions. Most of us are gamblers to some extent, but we like to trim the odds in our favor as much as possible. I also take all my packages to the counter at the post office and have them mark them FRAGILE. I always pay the 12 cent "fat tax" for non machinable and have them either gently hand cancel it right there or put it in the non machinable pile. Even if the package might just slip through the slot for thickness, there is a postal rule about rigid objects.. and you don't want a chip going through the postal machines anyway.. those rollers could snap a chip faster than a dealer can Blackjack when you put your big bet up!

I also place the chip inside of one of those small 2" x 3" coin envelopes, wrap that in bubble wrap, and then tape it to the interior wall of the packaging with heavy duty packaging tape so there is no movement and it cannot slip out of any intentional or unintentional slit in the envelope. Even should the envelope get cut in half, that chip ain't going nowhere!

Still waiting to read that article someone was going to write about getting free bubble mailers.