The Steel Guitar Forum

I checked with USPS and to ship a Don Blood pad for a Stage One steel would have cost $71 Priority Mail. Post Office does not ship slow boat anymore. I tried both UPS and FED-Ex websites and could figure out how to register other than as a "guest" By doing that I could only ship in the USA. I also tried what in the past was Bax Global, but only business clients may use them. Anybody know a reasonable shipper whom a non-business person can use? Thanks, in advance. stevet

Steve, I don't know if this would work where you are but it might be worth a try.
Last year I looked into shipping a steel guitar to London UK. from London Ontario.
I went to my local London ON Int. Airport and inquired about sending the steel on Air Canada air freight. They not only did it routinely but would do it for a fraction of the price it would have cost to ship with FedEx.

The hook is that they would only fly the steel to London Heathrow and the buyer would have to go there to broker it thru customs himself, or hire a local carrier to do it for him and transport it to his home.

I was under the impression that this would not have worked if there had to be several airline companies involved.

Might be worth looking into.

The post office is the most reliable, however you can exspect it to take up to 8 weeks eventhough it goes by flight. I sent a $100.00 case last November and it arrived at mums house in Febuary in good condition...$71.00 is about the safest route, and isen't bad, anything abroad anymore you need to allow a $100.00 for shipping on anything light. The royal mail was in chaos a while back due to strikes, and shipping was terrible, have the person on the other end understand that, there is NO 3 day priority mail!

Also let me say....Paying for a faster service only get's it to London faster, when it arrives there, there is no priority really, it's just a sale's gimmick. Yeah, let's rush it to london overnight, and then it will take 6 weeks to get from London Custom's to a Bristol depot. In saying that, i used to send cards and sometimes they arrived in 4 days!!

Steve, if you are going to St Louis see if there are any members from UK and ask them if they can bring it back with them to post or courier in UK.

You might want to check out http://www.ipsparcel.com/

I used them when buying a steel from Mr Moyers in Texas and it worked just fine. Door to door service. The courier that brought it even set it up and played two verses of a four-four shuffle.

maybe "londen dairy air" what ever pack it good ,,ken