Safe and cheap way to deliver stuff from USA to Europe?

[Falconaitae]

I found one pony on Etsy, that I really like, though I have a problem with delivery terms.
The seller is in USA, and the price of delivery to Europe on the listing is $4, and according to my knowledge, this is too cheap to be a tracked parcel. I really need this to be tracked (I had some bad experiences in the past), so I asked the seller about additional cost of tracking. She answered, that she will look into it, and since that - silence.
So I checked the USPS website by myself, because I wanted to ask her to relist the pony with increased cost of delivery -  and it turns out, that the cheapest tracked delivery to my country is $43 (Express Mail International, and I entered 12 ounces weight), that is more, than price of the pony itself.
So do I get the USPS prices right, or did I miss something in those tables?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[StarFaerie]

Try Priority Mail rather than Express. That's what I usually get people from the US to send using. It has tracking.

[Falconaitae]

Try Priority Mail rather than Express. That's what I usually get people from the US to send using. It has tracking.

Thank you! I was looking at priority types as well, but somehow I missed the "non-box" one, which indeed is tracked, and slightly cheaper. Still, when it comes to ponies, sometimes I feel, that I live on the wrong side of the pond

[Ringlets]

Priority mail is certainly cheaper than express.. but its still a lot more expensive than first class   I guess it depends on the value of the pony and how hard to find it is. I know you'd prefer it tracked, but first class from the US  is usually very reliable, so if the pony is not too rare or valuable you might want to risk it in this case

[kellyponyfeathers]

Yeah, the US just doesn't have cheap international shipping that's also tracked.  I was able to send a pony to the UK recently for $22, and I think it was "registered" in a way that the registration number could also be used for tracking.  I dunno, I was kind of confused, and like you I'd been told that Priority and Express were the only ways to get tracking on overseas packages.  Luckily this postal worker seemed to know what he was doing, but his coworkers seemed confused too.

[Fräulein_Kim]

Priority mail is certainly cheaper than express.. but its still a lot more expensive than first class   I guess it depends on the value of the pony and how hard to find it is. I know you'd prefer it tracked, but first class from the US  is usually very reliable, so if the pony is not too rare or valuable you might want to risk it in this case

I agree. I almost always have my stuff shipped first class and when I ran into trouble it was usually due to the seller being shady and not the post loosing things. In recent months/a year I have lost quite a lot of stuff that got shipped from the UK, tho. So I prefer to go by registered mail when buying from there to protect both, me and the seller. It's weird. They used to be so reliable! So I can understand your worries :c - However, I'd decide by the value/HTF-ness of the pony.

[ponylady]

Unfortunately there is no real "cheap" method to ship from the US to Europe, especially with any sort of tracking.

Priority is going to run you about $37.00.  It's average arrival time is 6 to 10 business days and has limited insurance coverage.  But you can purchase more for an extra fee.

In all honesty, I ship First Class Mail International on a daily basis and do not have any trouble. But as Ringlets mentioned if the pony is a high value and you are worried, then Priority is going to be probably your best bet.     
 

[Falconaitae]

Well, this is a custom modified pony, so it's value is primarily in it's uniqueness - if it's gone, there will not be another copy. I'm mainly concerned with reliability of Polish Post here... as tracking already saved me once from clumsiness of post men, I quess, I will just have to pony up.
Anyway, thank you for all the information and advices