Have you ever lost something in the mail that was valuable or even irreplaceable?

Read in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about week ago (March 7) online that the U.S. Post Office is letting a new online company GovDeals.com, who put in a winning bid somewhere, to soon auction off lost articles that ended up in the Mail Recovery Center. That means, although it could help the post office start operating in the black, or at least more efficiently, that if you lose something you sent in the mail, you would probably now have to locate, bid, and buy your own property back. So I'm trying to decide, 6 months later, how long to keep trying to locate some irreplaceable missing books, including yearbooks, which were probably sold in an auction around December in a book lot to an unknown buyer or buyers in Georgia (and am waiting for insurance claim to be paid, but would still like those yearbooks back).