Hello there, I wonder if anyone can give me any advice. I want to send three guitars to my friend Bob in New York in time for Christmas - two three string dulcimer guitars made from tins, and one three string guitar made from a wooden box. Has anyone any experience of shipping gifts to the US? What would be the best way to do it? UPS? Royal Mail? Do I need to declare anything to Customs? Should I take them over to NY personally and get something for the wife from Macy's while I'm there?
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Thanks John, Jim - good advice. I'm pleased to hear the Customs form is simple!
I'll check out UPS and parcel2go when I've got them boxed up. I guess there's a decision to be made as to how much packaging is enough to protect them without the volumetric price rocketing up. If you see someone with a large box hanging around your local post office John, it's me!
Thanks again.
parcel2go.com are really good, book them online and they pick it up. personally i'd use it as a good excuse to hit the States for the weekend and grab a beer.
If you send stuff to USA from the UK you will have to fill in a customs form at the counter for it when you pay for the postage - it's very, very simple: just weight, value, description and category (goods / gift / trade sample). You don't need a customs form for sending within the EU.
The only thing to watch is the cost - these days most carriers charge by "volumetric charging", which means light bulky items (like a cigarbox guitar) get charged ridiculously high rates. They calculate the volume and apply a factor which gives a notional weight..for example a package which weighs only 2kg could calculate out to 6kg and you get charged on that. If they are really small you might get away with the small packet rate which is WAY cheaper, but the limit is length + width + height must be less than 90cm, max length 60cm...so with a uke you'd just about manage it.
At my local post office they just weigh my packages for overseas and don't bother measuring them..so I reckon I'm getting a good deal, and I've never had one come back due to underpayment. Also, there's a limit on compensation on musical instruments with ParcelForce and a lot of other carriers (used to be £150 if I recall).
I use ParcelForce, but they aren't cheap, and when I used to send a lot of stuff overseas I had an account with a local shipper and they used DHL and Lynx Express (now UPS) as their carriers which was cheaper than ParcelForce.