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I sold the King-Bess ( http://galvanizedjazz.com/tuba/4sale/TubasForSale.html ) to a gentleman in Tennessee and sent it off to him by Greyhound Package Express, but it never arrived. Please let me know if anyone has seen it. There is no other tuba like it.

How long has it been in transit? GPX can take a very long time, depending on the route.

I truly hope it gets located soon. Also, whether it works out or not, this is exactly why I won't let my tubas ride the dog.

I had a tuba bell travel around in the belly of a bus (God knows where) for over one month.

It was eventually "discovered" when the bus was in the shop for maintenance.

Thankfully, my phone number was on the box, and the maintenance shop called me up to notify me (fortunately it was only about 10 miles from my house).

If there's a phone number on the box, I'd bet you there will be a call made (eventually).

Driving is the best way, of course - I've driven 1,000 miles (each way) to pick up items [b]I[/b] would classify as "irreplaceable".

For very good reasons I have no first hand experience with Greyhound parcel transportation, but I remember, when Schleppy bought his conglomerated BBb helicon from the late Harold Hartman, better known as HHH or Harvey’s Happy Horns.

I knew when it was shipped, and when Schleppy didn’t start bragging in due time, I contacted him. Greyhound had lost track of it, and for too long time the efforts of Schleppy and of Harold’s wife, who did the administration of the shop, brought no rewards.

Schleppy has an advantage over most people, when it comes to looking through high-set windows, so one day he went around the storage of his local Greyhound depot and looked through the windows. And saw the packed helicon, which had been there in due time, only the local clerks had been too lazy to register its arrival.

Klaus

Open a missing item case if the allotted time has passed. All the info is on their website. Also download one of their claim forms just in case. And just bug living crap out of everybody at both ends and in between. It will probably show up.
I am seriously considering getting a one of those cell phone luggage tags for the next thing that I ship with GPX.
Also they get really really slow around any holiday because of the higher passenger count, and it takes them weeks to recover. Also any national or Regional event (weather) will set them back days or weeks, just to give them an excuse to keep sucking.
When you just have about given up all hope, it'll just show up out of nowhere. These people are really good at what they do.

Some kind of tracking device is a really great idea. You just hope the batteries last long enough....

Call the stations along route...and then the next one past! There is a map of the Greyhound routes if you google it.

Call Greyhound in Houston and ask for the GPX people that find everything. There are some seriously helpful people in that location that aren't reading a customer service script. They found a tuba I had shipped sitting in a pile of packages in a corner. There are two stations there, can't remember which it is. Maybe (713) 759-6550.

About the only positive in GHPE favor is that Thanksgiving-Christmas season is absolutely the worst time to ship anything. Volume is unmanageable, personnel are calling in "sick", most are exhausted and distracted. I'm glad it turned out okay, though.