TubeNet

Hello everybody!
Can anyone help with some ideas on how to ship my sousaphone by sea from Philadelphia to Switzerland?
It's a Conn 20 k in its original case. Shipping by air is prohibitively expensive around the $1500 mark....
I'm looking for a freight forwarder I suppose.
Any ideas gratefully received.
Thanks
Phillip

Great thanks very much!
Kind regards
Phillip

Was the $1500 quote for air freight on a pallet? Seems a little high even for that. If there's a possibility you could find air freight on a pallet at a comparable cost to the baggage deal, it's obviously a better ride for the sousaphone, and there's no issue with maximum baggage size on trans-Atlantic flights. I suppose it helps a little, costwise, if you can box it up and strap it to the pallet yourself.

Are you flying with it? If yes, you can check it in as additional baggage. It should be no problem that it's oversize, because it's a musical instrument. At least it was no problem with British Airways.

Butch

KiltieTuba wrote:( I don't know what the import costs were)

It's 8% VAT and about 30 swiss francs for writing the bill.

KiltieTuba wrote:Talk with timswisstuba (or whatever Tim's SN is) he has had to ship instruments across the ocean. When I shipped my jazzophone, I put it into two boxes and used USPS, shipping cost was around $200 ( I don't know what the import costs were)

Tim's a friend of mine and he's just shipped a load of stuff in a container over here but I missed it by about two weeks :-/
Thanks for all the advice
Phillip