Re: [alfa] Shipping Europe to US

["Dean W. Cains" <dwc@xxxxxx>]

Hi Michael:

From the UK, I'm pretty sure that both Highwood and Alfaholics used the 
Royal Mail Service for the smaller shipments, and OK Parts used the German 
Postal Service to ship the 4 Cromodora's.  I don't still have the last box 
I got from Hurtienne, but I think it was also the German Postal Service 
(which owns DHL, BTW).  By a wide margin the heaviest (and with the largest 
boxes) shipment I've received was the Euro carb setup from Italy.  It was 
carried by a third-party freight service (not one of the one's we'd know 
offhand, and I don't remember the name).  Somehow the boxes made their way 
to the USPS, where I had to pick them up, and shipping was very cheap, but 
as I mentioned, it took months.  Sorry I can't be more specific, but I'd 
have to say that when a national postal service is involved, the prices 
seem to be quite reasonable.  The oddest thing happened a few years ago 
when I bought an eBay Spica pump from a guy in New Zealand.  I sent the 
PayPal funds on a Monday night, and Thursday morning (same week) the pump 
arrived, with shipping of only ~$18.  The counter person at the post office 
told me that it probably ended up on an overnight plane, simply because 
there was room onboard, even though I had paid for the cheapest 
shipping.  I have never been asked to pay additional charges at my end for 
customs, or anything else, but I have noticed that on all the boxes from 
Germany, "Parts for Historic Cars" or something similar, is always clearly 
visible.

As an aside, whenever I need to ship parts within the US, FedEx Ground (or 
Home Delivery) has the best rates, and with an account I can print labels 
at home and just drop the boxes at Kinko's.


At 05:48 AM 7/19/2004, you wrote:

> Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 21:55:41 -0400
> From: Michael Tiefenback <tiefenback@domain.elided>
> Subject: [alfa] Shipping Europe to US
>
> Dean opined thusly...
>
>
>      Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 12:06:43 -0400
>      From: "Dean W. Cains" <dwc@domain.elided>
>      Subject: Re: [alfa] shipping car parts
>
>      Hi Benjamin:
>
>      I've had parts shipped from Germany, the Netherlands, the UK,
>      Italy, New
>      Zealand, Australia, and a few other places without any
>      trouble, or
>      unreasonable shipping rates.
>
> And I would ask:  What carriers were used?  I just got two struts from
> the UK and the shipper (an amateur, you understand, just like me)
> couldn't find a carrier for less than $UKL60.  That is US$110 or so.
> But FedEx and UPS (_and_ DHL) wanted half again as much.  I'd _love_ to
> know of more economical carriers, and even those by slow boat that take
> 6 weeks.  I thought those slow carriers only took large freight
> economically.
>
> Michael
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