Very interesting, Lynn. I can tell you where books lost in the mail go.
 
When I was a grad student, I traveled in 1982 to LA (that's Los Angeles,
not Lower Alabama) to collect data for my dissertation. As usual, I
explored a few secondhand bookstores. One of them acquired its wares by
purchase at U.S. Postal Service auctions. The result was remarkably random.
There was a stack of five copies of the Peterson field guide to Eastern
birds, but none for Western birds, or, indeed, to any other group of
organisms. There was a lost thesis, probably one of only five or so in
existence. I remember five volumes of The Veliger neatly bound in blue,
evidently lost between bindery and library. (No, I couldn't afford them on
a student's stipend.) There were whole canvas postal carts filled with
books, and little effort had been made to organize anything. The oddest
book of all was a travel guide to the seamier parts of American cities. It
was in Japanese, but a few polite English phrases stood out here and there:
"Please, sir, could you kindly direct me to the red-light district?" The
40's slang recommended by the guidebook was already 40 years of date. Well,
I guess you had to be there to appreciate it. Oh, yeah, and that's where I
found my copy of that elusive book on drift seeds, and why it is stamped in
heavy purple ink on the endpapers: SOLD AT USPS AUCTION.
 
Anyway, that's what happens to lost books in the mail. As to shells, I
don't know. Be careful what you send; you never know what will turn up for
sale in Los Angeles.
 
Andrew K. Rindsberg