Shipping a RAR - safe arrival ahoy!  

Greyhound
Should be able to do it for a reasonable cost, as long you find an appropriately sized box and pack it well.

Greyhound..
Greyhound should do the job.

Yes
Disassembling does make shipping much more manageable. In that case, it should be about $50 to ship across country.

Amtrak
You might also want to look into shipping with Amtrak. Of course locations are limited, but I remember using it for some shell chairs about 15 years ago and had no problems.

amtrak
Actually that's interesting to know because I have an amtrak station very close to my house. It would be easier for me to pick it up if shipped via amtrak than via greyhound. (Also the bus station is in a pretty shady area of the city and I'd much prefer the train station pick up location.) Thanks for the tip.
Thanks to Woody for his input too. I'm grateful for any info.
Can any of your RAR owners or dealers out tell me if it's any big deal to dismantle these chairs? I've taken bases off several of my eames shell chairs, but have never dealt with a rocker base. Any pitfalls to be aware of when it comes to dealing with them? Either removing legs from chair of base, or the rockers from the bottom?

I would have him ship it in a
24 in. x 24 in. x 36 in Wardrobe box. They have these at home depot and he just needs to carefully remove the runners, wrap, and place those in the box with the chair.
Depending on your location a box this size will make under 130 at USPS. I know this information from my last shipment of an Eames Soft pad chair.
The most important thing for him to do is to buy bubble wrap and carefully pack the chair. Moreover, in a box that size he would only have to remove the runners, nothing else. Blessings

I've had
good luck with furniture shipped by Greyhound. The chair is not all that big, so you should find a box to fit the entire chair without having to take it apart. You'll need a lot of packing peanuts, tho. (Remember, to OVERFILL the box so the chair does not move at all...)

I've had terrible luck
with Greyhound and other shippers when heavy items like chairs were packed in styrofoam peanuts.
It doesn't matter how many peanuts you stuff in there; they'll shift around and the chair will move through them until one of its fragile corners or edges is pressed right up against the side or bottom of the box.
Use a cushioning method that prevents the packing material from flowing around the chair. Bubble wrap is good.

Thanks everyone!!
Big thanks to everyone who posted, it is all very helpful. Tomorrow is the big day, the chair is being shipped (it looks like UPS will be used) tommorrow. I've summarized all the info in this thread to the guy shipping so I hope it will arrive safely - I've done as much as I could to help.
I'll update to let everyone know how it turns out.
Thanks!

Agreed
Peanuts no good for large, heavy items, unless the item is first thoroughly wrapped and padded with something else.
The RAR is not very heavy however, but it's still wise to be safe. Another note is that it might not fit in a 24x24 box since the shell is more than 24" wide.

Glue the box....never tape.
I know a lot of people dislike shipping USPS because of large meat eaters handling the boxes but I've been using them for a couple years and have had only one problem. The price is cheap.
Make sure the box is GLUED!!!! I never tape anymore.
I've shipped numerous arm shells (not rope edged zeniths though) around the world in custom boxes and never had a problem. It does take about an hour to cut / glue / hold to cure the pieces but it's a small price to pay for a really nice RAR.
Make sure the box is 2-ply and glue pieces of a box to the inside corners.
Remember GLUE

Peanuts, you say?
Curious aside from the peanut gallery:
When Michelangelo's "Pieta" was shipped from the Vatican to NY for the 1964 World's Fair, it was packed in... ?
Yup, you guessed it!

Yes, but
you're leaving out some details. You know perfectly well that it wasn't just peanuts in a cardboard box around the sculpture...
http://www.iiconservation.org/publications/pubs_search.php?pub_id=325

I left out ALL the details
because they are boring. Except, maybe, that the welded aluminum container was secured to the deck of a ship with straps that were designed to dissolve after a period of submersion, hopefully allowing the bouyant, watertight case to float free should the ship ever sink.