Shipping Guitar It's that time of year where I have to pack up and head back to the US, and I'm having a bit of trouble deciding how I want to ship my guitars. Since the guitar falls within the 30kg limit range, I've thought about shipping it either by the SAL or boat method. Personally, I would like to take the guitar in the box as checked luggage on Singapore Airlines, but it goes over the 20 kg limit, and there is a 30$ / kg extra fee. So, doing one of the options below would be more suitable. I've thought about going with the boat method, as I'm a broke student still, but thinking of leaving my guitar in the hands of someone for 2 months seems iffy. Does anyone know exactly why the procedure by boat takes around 2 months? Also, being that my guitar is unique, is it a bad idea to even think about boat?
SAL is trackable from Japan to the US, so you will have a rough idea of where your items are, plus you can insure the items too. Surface mail is only trackable when it is in Japan, but it can take a long time for your goods to arrive. Although items can be insured you only really want to send things that you don't care about. Surface mail takes a long time as you may find it will sit in a warehouse until they get at least a container load of items, it then will travel to another port where it might have to wait until another ship is going to another port and so forth. Although going from Japan to America means it might only visit one port frist.
From the description of the guitar I would fork out the $30 per kilo and carry it on. Hell, you might get lucky and not even pay a fee..
I've only used surface shipping once for an MSX-computer and it took almost exactly 8 weeks as predicted. I can't complain, but the waiting time was killing me so I'll stick to SAL in future if possible.
Only from specific post offices (generally major ones). As the OP is known to live in BFE, it might be an issue.
I've sent things via SAL to the UK, Belgium, Australia and America and each time I've had a rough idea where the parcel is, up until it is on route for delivery and it's always shown up which post office (which has been any dedicated post office, even the tiny ones that have 2 desks and a cash point) it was posted from whilst in Japan. I am aware that this only works with SAL parcels rather then SAL small packets.
I've thought about just taking it on the plane, but the dimensions of the box fall exceed the limit and they take no responsibility if any damage is inflicted upon the guitar... So, I guess I'll have no choice but to ship with the options above. But, I may take your suggestions and go with the SAL option, as it would at least arrive faster than the boat.
Hey PS! Sorry to go off-topic in your thread, but since you're heading home soon, you could always release your DC PSO beta disks to the community ^o^. I mean, it's about time heh =D? That would be a cheerful Christmas gift!! Anyways, good luck shipping your stuff.
There are but you have to send at least 50kg plus to make it worth it. All I would recommend is packing you guitar well, I would even think about double boxing the item. Remembering that the length plus twice the width and depth multiplied by 2 must be 3m or less and under 30kg.
I never had any problems by boat. I have sent so many things (guitars included). It took about 2 months to get to my family's house in San Francisco, but everything was intact and in the condition i shipped it in. I lived in Sendai for a long time (Takamori, Izumi-ku). I love Miyagi more than any other prefecture in Japan that I have been to or lived (42 prefectures!). Treat Sendai well!
Definitely does not have to exist. Most of the time a company is floating the bill, resulting in a rather bloated cost. When my company of 10 relocated to Hawaii we got a group discount, but it was still hardly affordable. I took a few pieces of furniture and what you'd expect a married couple w/ no children to have (+ about 5 boxes of game shit) and it was somewhere to the tune of a million yen. The Japanese post office in which the package originates must support this though. Not all of them do (and yes, I'm sure it doesn't work for SAL small packet).
LOL, pretty obvious that you don't know what being a "true" expat is like (not talking about the gaijin Eikaiwa teachers).
Quick update: Shipped out the first guitar. Double boxed, it came out at a weight of 16.8kg and less than the 2.75m limit on the combined dimensions. However, we got a call from the customs hours before it shipped out and had to tell them where the guitar was made, what the case was constructed of, and the brand of the guitar... My next guitar was made in Japan, so hopefully I have no problems with that...
