You are right. My experience is, that with normal shippers (FEDEX, UPS, DHL) watches are never insured: if you read the small letters over here you will find out, that only DHL insures...international. For national shippings its only insured upto 500 Euro. With fedex and UPS I found out 100 usd is the max (for VALORE II articles; not sure if this is still true as I shipped for 2 years now with DHL)

And if a watch is lost what happens than: you need a invoice and time ..much time..sometimes 6 months...

Here is what I recommend for shipping watches:

- let them tripple box (box in box in box system)...so no grap in can happen
- always use own boxes
- dont write brand names or the name "watch" on any value/content sticker- If you are academic dont use your titel on the sticker...use: "old mechanical device"...or if needed " old time piece"
- dont write ebay on it and dont place ebay paperwork in the box
- dont ship during holidays and christmas as during that time shippers hire externals for doing the job (after christams they are gone...your package too)+ postal traffic increases heavily
- dont ship Fridays: boxes do lay around in postal centers over the weekend...so do the Monday thing and receive it finally on Friday.

Alex

PS: I purshased a cameraon ebay 4 years ago: never arrived with Deutsche Post. I got the money back from insurance. After 1 year I bought the cam back on ebay (boxed with papers and serial number matching) from a company who is selling lost packages with no owner for Deutsche Post on ebay...luckily the cam was 30% cheaper...however this is how it can come...crazy!