Regular mail from France to USA--how long?
 

I'm waiting for something that was mailed from a medium-sized town in France to my home in the US 2 weeks ago by regular mail. I had asked that it be sent signature-required but they didn't do that. I'm worried that it has gone missing.

Does anyone have experience as to what kind of transit time one should expect (for a small package or fat letter in this case)?
Thanks.

http://www.laposte.fr/Particulier/En...-international

It shows it should not take more than 15 days. According to my experiences, packages took 7-10 days from Paris region to Detroit region.

Sometimes the letter or package is stuck somewhere in the US mail systems.
E.g: whenever I rent a vacation place in little hamlets in France, I send my cheque by regular snail mail - after 4 days the owner will e-mail me telling me that he/she has received my payment and that the signed contract is in the mail - delivery to Montreal 4 to 7 days - dependin from where it is coming and the time it was mailed.

This summer, I did the same for a VRBO rental in Maine. After 2 weeks, the owner has not received my letter enclosing my cheque. I went to the bank to cancel the first cheque and resend a second one again through registered mail with a tracking number. The letter left Canada within 2 days, reached the border on the 3rd day and then silence. The first and second letter reached the owner on the 4th week the first letter went out of Montreal.

So it must be sitting somewhere ....( I was told that sometimes even a letter is set aside to be "scrutinized" by an agent from some agency)

Did you have a return address on it, just in case you got the destination address wrong?

I assume so--it was mailed to me by someone else and she is now checking with La Poste to find out what, if anything, can be done to locate it. (Had I mailed it, I would have sent it with tracking capability.)

Thanks to all. dodo's post gives me hope that it's sitting on a desk in a US agency awaiting a blessing so it can get back in the mail stream.

In case someone has this question about regular mail from France to the US in the future:
It took 30 days for a slightly pudgy 4"x7" (or so) manila envelope sent from central France to arrive in the central US by regular mail. (No damage and it didn't appear to have been opened.)

I always give it 10-14 business days. After this time I might get a little concerned it was caught in customs if the piece is anything besides a letter.

USPS has not exactly what I would call a well oiled machine.

May be just the sweet time for someone to just "scan" it to see the content ;)