how much to ship 30 lb (12 kilo ?) box from UK ?

Not from the UK, but my experience is the best way to go is Royal Mail. From our side, the USPS is the best.

Commercial carriers charge a brokerage fee to take the shipment through Customs, which is usually not necessary for our small packages. That makes the cost of sending something far too high to be practical.

Robb,

Can't comment on safety because I don't ship internationally. However, having just popped your information through Royal Mail's postage pricer, I can tell you it will have to be ParcelForce or some other carrier (TNT, Tufnells etc), not Royal Mail (as they don't seem to do it), and it's going to cost a lot!

£89 at best, £120 at worst (that's pounds, sterling)

Sarah

It will not be inexpensive at all. If safety is a concern FedEx is in my opinion the better way to go but more expensive. Sending it mail is the least expensive but no tracking available.

hi Ron,

yes, expensive ! is what i have found.

the cheapest so far is (£89) or $180 dollars US like Sarah had shown for a

26 lb pkg

i wouldn'y care if delivery took a month if i could get it down in the (£40) $80 range

thanks for your reply, robb

thanks for info Sarah,

That as inexpensive as i have found also. Thanks again for responding with info. robb

BTW there is a nice Pfaff creative 1471 in Aylesbury (listed on the Bay) for pretty good price if you or anyone you know is interested in such a thing.

You could try some place that ships by boat , would likely be the least expensive take 6 weeks or so. not sure about tracking or insurance

Robb wrote: .=2E.

=A340) $80 range Here's an idea. There's probably someone flying to the US from an airport near you. Post messages on a few appropriate boards and you can find someone. Buy 'em a thrift suitcase, have them check as baggage. You might need to "give" this as a gift so there's no threat of "has anyone unknown to you asked you..." etc etc. Even if your new friend (NF) has to pay to check the bag, that's likely to be much less expensive than paying its way on a delivery service. Once you are stateside, have NF buy it a ticket on greyhound, which is the cheapest *and* fastest way to ship something durable like this.

HTH

--Karen D. who once had a bicycle repair kit confiscated by the geniuses at TSA

down in the (£40) $80 range

an

you

yea that would be good but i think i would want to find an old friend ??

there is an online service, i just learned about, called

**uship.com** it is similar to what you are thinking. you post an item you want to ship, the start and end point and then people bid down the cost of making that shippment for you typically someone might be making a trip through the way points and will carry or haul the items for lesser cost than shipping companies

a friend recently hauled a boat/trailer from TN to Texas as part of their own road trip and pocketed $400

i looked but there does not seem to be a big international bidding section i suppose it needs time to catch on.

robb

Robb wrote: ...

Depends on how desperate you are to get the fabric overseas.

I'm on some bicycling message boards. Bought a bike trailer (the kiddie cart style, on an auction site), and the seller was adamantly unhelpful about working with me on retrieval. (Could not be shipped.) Business workday hours only in City A, and I live two hours away.

I posted a message, and within a day had someone who works in City A willing to pick up the cart and bring to his house in City B. Conveniently, I had a weekend gig in City B, so I collected it (and then we stood and talked about bikes for a while...and I hid some currency under his front step flower pot because he refused gas money).

Closer to home, our Kate helped out someone else with an overseas SM delivery/set-up.

A casual acquaintance left behind a large umbrella at my house. I took it to a large bicycling event wearing a tag with a cute message ("Ursula Umbrella needs to go home to Louisiville") and someone collected it, took it to a friend, that person got it closer. The final dropper-offer lived down the street from the owner! It would not have been worth shipping, and this way was a lot more fun. (This happened probably in 1998, and the stories are well worth the minor effort.)

The world is full of nice, honest people; you just haven't met your courier yet.

HTH

--Karen D.

The flyball world is certainly full of nice, honest people. In 4 years of sales I've had *one* bounced check. I have an extremely liberal exchange and return policy and I've only had one single group order take unfair advantage - the club in question got their boots, wore them to run in a horse barn (rendering them filthy and useless) then sent them back for exchange because, basically, they did a crappy job measuring.

I replaced those boots without comment, which infuriated my teenage daughter ("But they just... And then you.... GEEZE!").

But at the next tournament the nefarious five appeared, with ten teammates and acquaintances in tow, all wanting to be set up with new boots which I fitted myself and knew damned good and well fit properly (available immediately and in their team colors because I'd seen them listed on the seed charts).

And since then I've had several re-orders from the group and half a dozen referrals. In flyball it seems like even the dodgy customers bring good busines in their wake.

I've got into this one late...

We on the Treadle On circuit do this porting of machines from A to B to C round the world at irregular intervals. Sometimes it takes months for something to get to its final destination, but when it's a much loved treadle machine nearing its 100th birthday, it's worth the wait.

If you are packing a machine for travel, pack it this way: