The Steel Guitar Forum

I predict in 10 years disagreeing with ANYONE will be against the law. I saw it when this was said (several times)about keeping things here... Personally I don't think it was about shipping, I think it is about preserving AMERICAN Heritage, America rescued Europe in WW2. We're there when trgedy strikes others, We cater to the World... Is there something wrong for wanting to keep what is considered a masterpiece in you own Country?. A Well known fact Museums want to keep regional art in THEIR country, Music ditto,,, no different with our vintage one of a kind steels.
Yes sorry BUT I hate to see one of our beautiful Stratocasters,vintage Telecasters,or an Old Collectable Emmons leave the Country. a lot by money hungry collectors wanting to remove our treasures to make a profit..
it is nothing to do with hurting anyone's feelings or being political...to be honest sort of tired of our heritage and feelings being ignored... Our Craftsman make(and have made) some of the most desirable instruments and cars.and products for that matter on planet earth our products have long set he standard for the rest of the wold....How about Boeing Airplanes?.. I for one raise my glass to our heritage and Craftsman. I do not mind someone from Sweden or England having a vintage guitar as long as it is being PLAYED.. I plead the FIFTH:).

Wow! America 'rescued' Europe? I thought they just joined in the fight. I've been laboUring under a misapprehension...

Me too Rodger.Bill you seem to be forgetting where your heritage lies, Howard is an English name, probably came from the people who populated and built most of the infrastructure to start with, they were many and varied, engineers,doctors, farmers, even musicians -Scottish,English,Irish, Welsh, French , Dutch, Swedish etc etc., so perhaps you should look on it as sending an instrument to the folks back home.

It is naive to state that the customs form is the only difference in shipping out of the country. ... Sven, if you think Customs agents that inspect shipments take the same care re packing the boxes they inspect you are kidding yourself. To tell us that the customs form is the only difference is naive. ... Other than carrying a policy with Heritage, which used to cost me $1700, how do you insure, for example, a vintage instrument? Fed Ex will insure up to $50,000, however, items of unusual value are exempted -- even if you purchase the insurance. Musical instruments more than ten years old are not covered.

I agree with Chris on this. Shipping a large, heavy, and valuable item like a 60-80 pound pedal steel carries significant risk, and longer distances and more hurdles in shipping increase that risk significantly. He's also correct about the problems in insuring valuable and especially vintage instruments. I don't think anybody here would argue against the concept that every buyer has the absolute right to decide whether or not to accept a shipping risk like this. Why in blazes does that same right not extend to sellers?

If a buyer tells a seller that "they accept the risk and indemnify seller against damage", this does NOT mean the buyer will not come after seller if something happens in shipment, regardless of whether or not it's the seller's fault. Most people assume that the responsibility for dealing with shipping damage problems lies with the seller, not the buyer. Dealing with SNAFUs in shipping becomes significantly more difficult as distance and number of international boundaries increase. Is it unreasonable that sellers want to protect their reputations against things over which they have no control?

In fact, we've had well-known cases on this forum where it seems clear that something happened in shipment to Europe - at least one well-known company's name was drug through the mud over a period of months, frankly damaging their reputation.

Large and well-known vintage instrument dealers will generally ship internationally - they are multi-million dollar enterprises and insure themselves to the gills to insulate themselves from problems, as Chris alluded to above. This gives them access to markets that permits them to jack up their prices mercilessly, which many routinely do. But even these guys have countries to which they will not ship - there are well known 'customs black-holes' out there. But to expect an occasional, casual seller of a personal item to be duty-bound to this type of standard is ridiculous.

I believe that most times these types of decisions have nothing to do with xenophobia. Your concept of 'misplaced selfishness' may be nothing more than 'enlightened self-interest'.

Roger Rettig wrote:Wow! America 'rescued' Europe? I thought they just joined in the fight. I've been laboUring under a misapprehension...

I read that Aquaman saved Europe, but I think the source might have been a comic book.

Yes, customs agents do have a right to open packages and inspect them, and they do from time to time, especially when your description of the item on the customs declaration is vague, or if it's something that they don't recognise, or if the description differs from what they see on their x-ray scan.
Has anyone ever considered that, if the instrument has been in a location where someone was smoking pot, the sniffer dogs might stop at the package and sniff around it?
But the main problem I've had with customs agents failing to take care when repackaging has not been in the mail, it's been when travelling by air. I always make sure that I surround the inside of my suitcase with packages of loose tea. It's good insulation, works better than bubble wrap, and tea is about a sixth of the price in England as it is in California. I almost always open my suitcase or instrument case and find a note that they've been opened by customs, and they're never put back with the same care that I originally packed them.

Alan Brookes wrote:Yes, customs agents do have a right to open packages and inspect them, and they do from time to time, especially when your description of the item on the customs declaration is vague, or if it's something that they don't recognise, or if the description differs from what they see on their x-ray scan.

Which is practically always the case with pedal steel guitars -- Hmm some kind of guitar, but a guitar does not weigh this much or look like what I see on the screen.

Never had a problem shipping stuff and if travelling with guitar I always ask the desk clerk if I can check guitar in at oversize desk, explaining it is an extremely expensive guitar, upon check in I ask to see TSA and explain what is in case as most have never seen a pedal steel.I have a picture of guitar assembled taped to inside of case, and a large polite notice asking TSA /Customs not to pick up by rods,to use end plates,explaining it will damage guitar.So far never had problem, also by using oversize it means case is not going round miles of belts,as most oversize go straight through a flat belt onto a baggage trailer and straight out to aircraft,and depending on destination should work ok if they have incoming oversize delivery point.

Bill- 'America rescued Europe in WW2' pity my old dad aint still alive,he would have a view on that,after 25 years as a Royal Marine, serving all around the world and right through second world war, he had a bit of first hand reliable knowledge.

Craftsman heritage? its a pity Fender Gibson and many other US manufacturers didnt consider your craftsmen when getting Japan to copy anything worth selling.

The original post? folks should be free to sell whatever to whoever anytime, however! here in UK we are on a winner,we can get a lot more £ss for a quality instrument right here on our doorstep so aint gonna sell to far off lands. no discrimination no political correctness,just fact.

Bill Howard wrote:...America rescued Europe in WW2. We're there when trgedy strikes others, We cater to the World..

America rescued itself in 1942-5.
If Britain had collapsed in 1942 and Germany had put nuclear weapons on its V2 rockets, as it was planning to do, the USA would have surrendered after the first couple of cities were destroyed, just like the Japanese did, and as any country would in the face of an overwhelming enemy.

What a terrible world we would now be living in. Thank heaven for FDR's stand against the isolationists.

Wow! America 'rescued' Europe? I thought they just joined in the fight.

Hey Rog...I know that this is not the WW II forum, but I think that history shows that you are not mistaken. I think that the dates on my Dad's letters sent home from France (and from Great Britain before that) would agree with your thought as well.

Now...back to our regularly scheduled programming: Pedal Steel, that is.

Larry Bressington wrote:What's next? Emmons guitar Co owned by a paki ?

!

From everything that I have read (from members here) over the past several years.....it may be an improvement......

Yes Roger, Perhaps you have been labouring under a misapprehension...

Death figures for World War Two vary from source to source. The figures below are believed to be reasonably accurate

Country Military Civilian Total

USSR 12 million 15 million 27 million
China 1.8 million 7.5 million 9.3 million
Poland 400,000 5.86 million 6.26 million
Germany 3.25 million 2.44 million 5.69 million
Japan 1.5 million 500,000 2 million
Yugoslavia305,000 1.35 million 1.66 million
Romania 450,000 465,000 915,000
Hungary 200,000 600,000 800,000
France 245,000 350,000 595,000
Great Britain 403,000 92,700 495,000
Italy 330,000 100,000 430,000
Austria 280,000 125,000 405,000
United States 407,000 6,000 413,000
Greece 60,000 350,000 410,000
Czechoslovakia 7,000 315,000 322,000
Netherlands 13,700 236,000 249,000
Philippines 27,000 91,000 118,000
Belgium 23,000 76,000 99,000
Finland 80,000 10,000 90,000
Bulgaria 10,000 51,000 61,000
Canada 39,000 39,000
Australia 35,000 35,000
Albania 20,000 10,000 30,000
India 25,000 25,000
New Zealand 17,000 17,000
*Civilian numbers include those killed as a result of the Holocaust*

Gibson made only a hundred of a certain guitar. Of the known survivors, 75% were in Japan, where american guitars are very popular.( especially Fenders )

I am on RV related forum where members of a certain country all keep giving the same dangerous advice, and beat up anyone who disagrees with them.

Things like this get me feeling patriotic, or protective of our culture, or something.

Normally, I am of the " Can't we all just get along " mentality. But I have noticed some " attitudes " towards Americans in many countries. so the butt head in me feels like,,,,," If you don't like Americans, quit hoarding our Fenders"

I'm not picking on any one country, and I know there is good and bad everywhere.

quote- " If you don't like Americans, quit hoarding our Fenders"

love it David- can we have our Jaguars Land Rovers Rolls Royce's back please, and make it quick before the Germans start on you.

This is not misplaced selfishness. When I was a kid if you wanted just about anything it was made in America and nobody in the world could hardly match it for quality. Since WW2, lots of (almost everything) has been shipped overseas because our greedy companies get much cheaper labor over there. (or maybe the unions forced it upon them by forcing them to pay such high wages.) I saw a very large sign in Houston about 30 years ago that said, "Buy a foreigh car and put 25 Americans out of work." Selfish or not, I would like to see it like it used to be where Americans bought things made in America. If you haven't noticed, this practice has put us on the brink of disaster (economically) and I see no getting out of it. Adios beloved "good ole USA." I for one will miss you. Things were much better bach when everybody kept it in the "good ole USA."

I don't wholeheartedly agree, Robert.

I'd say that's been true of certain products. Certainly American companies have made some of the best musical instruments (in the non-classical category, at least) over the last eighty years but US-made cars have never rivalled those made in Britain and Germany - at least in the high-end section of the market. Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Aston-Martin, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce and Bentley come to mind (although the last two are no longer exclusively British - their engines are German! )

British ingenuity has made for huge advances in air travel (the jet-engine is a British invention) as well as countless other strides in the sciences in general (television was another).

No argument from me, though - American-made pedal steel guitars are best!!!

I think both American companies and American workers would appreciate other nations' buyers purchasing American products and services. This increase in demand would also apply to NEW guitars and such. End result: For Americans, more profits and more jobs. For non-Americans, more choice of products and services. It is a world market out there these days. stevet

Robert Morgan wrote: "Buy a foreigh car and put 25 Americans out of work."

Right: 25 auto repairmen.

Earnest Bovine wrote:

Robert Morgan wrote: "Buy a foreigh car and put 25 Americans out of work."

Right: 25 auto repairmen.

That's a good one, Mr Bovine

Oeff, how about European instruments in the USA?
(Well, shure I had problems when the Taliban hoarded all USA-banjo's and used them as a secret weapon )

David Shepack wrote:"If you don't like Americans, quit hoarding our Fenders"

If I hadn't obtained and imported my EXTREMELY heavy Fender PS-210 it would probably be either in bits or in someone's music room decorating it, BUT it's not, It's out being played regularly on TV shows and live gigs. I wouldn't call that hoarding !

Speaking as a UK ex-pat living in Ireland, in my opinion this all started with the throwing overboard of a large quantity of perfectly good tea in Boston.
Were it not for that act of wanton vandalism, we'd probably still have a half-decent Empire...and we'd own the copyright on all your big-name guitars. Happy Christmas!

Wanton vandalism indeed, by a bunch of people dressed up like Indians. (Had they no shame?) It cost them nothing. Not everyone was so lucky. There's always someone who ends up having to pay for other people's pranks. Everyone knows the story of the "Boston Tea Party" but how many people know who had to pay for the party?

It was the firm of Davison, Newman & Co., of London, a well-known tea importer/exporter at the time. Their insurance company turned down their claim, saying that it was an "act of war" and not covered. So they petitioned the King, saying that it was his fault that he had upset the colonists to the extent that they had rebelled against him. King George, of course, ignored their petition, so they started printing copies of their petition on every can, crate and package of tea that they sold from then on, and they still do so to this day.






The one good thing that came out of it all was that, playing on the publicity, their tea became famous and everyone wanted to buy cans of tea related to the incident. Over the 240 years since the incident they've probably more than made up for their loss.

Fascinating stuff, Alan. I was so amazed that I had to sit down and have a cuppa. Speaking of which, and to rub salt in the Tea Party wound, not only did the ungrateful population CONTINUE to drink tea after our little disagreement....but the cheeky buggers began to drink it cold with ice and lemon!
No taxation without representation? No tea without milk and sugar more like! TTFN.
(Keep up the under-cover work. HM will be in touch)
PS: Good luck against Forest on Saturday....