Shipping a Horn

[Himes]

How safe is it to have a horn shipped without a hard case these days? IE - you buy a horn that does not include a case and have it shipped to your location. Obviously there is some risk whenever anything is shipped, but is this something to be avoided at all costs?

Thanks.

[MartyNeilan]

Just putting a horn in a regular hardcase guarantees nothing. There will still need to be extensive packing involved unless you are shiping the horn in a flight case. Even with a flightcase, you will still want to put something like a ball inside the bell. I have had several horns shipped from Baltimore brass with no cases, and they arrived in the same condition they left BBC. I have also shipped a few horns as well, and spent literally hours packing them to assure there would not be any problems.

[Dan Schultz]

..... IMHO - The only way to routinely ship is to crate your hardcase and ship by Greyhound......

Ditto. I've had great success shipping horns via Greyhound in a case only with no external packing. I think a heavy crate should be reserved for shipping by truck only. A heavy box to a UPS or FEDEX driver is merely a challenge to see how far it can be thrown or dropped!

Greyhound is always my first choice. I've never had a problem with them. There is one drawback, though.... their liability limits suck! $1,000 maximum and it's limited to only $300 after 1,000 or so miles.... depending on the zone.

[joshwirt]

I can say that without a doubt.....I will NEVER ship Greyhound again!!!

I had a recent experience that was an absolute nightmare. The instrument was being shipped to me from Boston to VA. As previously noted, the max liability was $1000 (which I didn't know until I got it) but the worst part was that the instrument was virtually untrackable. It never showed up to the destination station. I called all points between for hours and either no one answered the phones or when they did, they couldn't find it in the system. This nonsense went on for 2.5 days AFTER it was supposed to arrive. I finally got them to send it to a closer station so that I didn't have to keep driving out for an instrument that was promised to be on the next bus.....and never was!!!

I decided to pass on this horn and sent it back to the owner in Boston via Amtrak. As for cost, the shipping of the tuba to Boston via Amtrak was $8 less than Greyhound.....got there in 2 days.....from the exact same station.....fully insured.....and zero headaches.

Now, I can say that I've personally shipped/received 5 tubas (2 in the past 2 months) via Amtrak and I've had a completely different experience. Every time the horns have departed/arrived in perfect condition. The tubas were all trackable and Amtrak has a max liability of $10K ($0.50 per $100). I've shipped in flight cases, hard cases and even shipped 1 tuba to CA in a gig bag packed with peanuts inside a giant cardboard box.....no issues.

Several people here swear by Greyhound, but after taking a bus from Reno to VA and seeing how the baggage is treated....and now a personal experience.....err, nightmare.....I'll never recommend Greyhound to anyone!

-Josh

[Dan Schultz]

I can say that without a doubt.....I will NEVER ship Greyhound again!!! ......I've personally shipped/received 5 tubas (2 in the past 2 months) via Amtrak and I've had a completely different experience. Every time the horns have departed/arrived in perfect condition.

I suppose Amtrak is OK but the BIG problem with them as I see it.... is that I would have to drive three hours to get to their closest terminal!

It's true that Greyhound does not have a tracking system that we can access. It's also true that the schedules are not consistent simply because their policy is that 'passengers and their stuff goes first'. Freight goes on only if space is available. You've got to be willing to sit tight and wait for them to call you to go pick stuff up.

An interesting note... no matter who you use as a shipper, you have to make certain that everything is clearly marked inside and out with a full street address and contact information. In the unlikely event that baggage tags fall off, that's the only way to make sure your stuff makes it to the proper destination. I know that tagless stuff at Greyhound is routed to a major clearing house in Dallas... where it is eventually matched with whatever information is attached and claim information.

I've had a beef with virtually every carrier at one time or another. There's some degree of risk no matter who you ship with. No matter who it is, you'll play hell getting a suitable settlement. The Amtrak liability limit might be $10,000 but you had better read the 'fine print'.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

I have a perfect solution...no matter who you choose as a shipper, or what method of shipping you choose, take the responsibility to pack the instrument so well that no damage could possibly occur. That will assure that you have no problems at all.

All of this ranting and raving against various shippers is pointless...I know some people who work for all three of the major shippers here (USPS, UPS, FedEx), and they are all decent people who aren't looking to destroy your package for kicks. If you ask the guys on the line, they will tell you that 98% of the insurance claims come from customers who don't package their items properly for shipping.

If you want to peg a certain shipping company as "bad," please provide more than your own anecodetal evidence...that's hardly fair to blame an entire company for one bad experience.

[pierso20]

I have a perfect solution...no matter who you choose as a shipper, or what method of shipping you choose, take the responsibility to pack the instrument so well that no damage could possibly occur. That will assure that you have no problems at all.

All of this ranting and raving against various shippers is pointless...I know some people who work for all three of the major shippers here (USPS, UPS, FedEx), and they are all decent people who aren't looking to destroy your package for kicks. If you ask the guys on the line, they will tell you that 98% of the insurance claims come from customers who don't package their items properly for shipping.

If you want to peg a certain shipping company as "bad," please provide more than your own anecodetal evidence...that's hardly fair to blame an entire company for one bad experience.

fair enough and true. I'm sure everyone can think of good experience with a company and poor experiences...thus is life.

I do wanna say though....

"*97.3% of all statistics such as these are made up at the time they are presented"
Since I dorkingly took the time to see what was actually written in size 1 font I figured I'd share.

[jeopardymaster]

I'm a bit braver now than when I shipped "The Wizard" to Robert. Maybe that's not all good, and maybe I've been lucky. One thing I did that I will almost always do with a tuba is ship the horn separate from the hard case. I shipped Robert's hard case to him empty via Greyhound. Nothing to tempt anyone inside it even if it got opened, but visualizing it sitting 24 hours somewhere semi-lost in the center of Atlanta was teh scary for me. It's a bit less critical with trombones. But a packed tuba in a case is super heavy. That means 2 things. 1) It can attain more force when it gets moving -- not a good thing for it or its neighbors in the hold; 2) It becomes a challenge for the guy who picks it up, so he might drop it, or might treat it rougher than he should out of irritation or the need to get it off his back -- neither leads to a good result. When I pack a tuba in a box, I bag it first (garbage bag) and then use not only the peanuts and the bubble wrap, but also I use that rigid foam you find in 2' by 4' sheets at Lowes and Home Depot. That goes just inside the cardboard shell, forms a rigid shell inside the shell and I think dissipates the blows a bit more. I've been using FedEx Ground lately. Relatively inexpensive and seem to have gotten the horns there in one piece. All in all, though, it's better to just hand the horn over in person if possible.

[Rob]

I will offer some personal experience in regards to shipping Greyhound vs. UPS, with the understanding that Fedex uses similar processes to UPS.

When your packages goes UPS, it is going to get handled by a the driver on both ends, and it's a nice big, heavy box that they get to handle by themselves. Once it gets out of the truck at the first stop, it's going to go through a building(Tuba's likely are going to be too big to ride the conveyor belts{so they'll miss out on jams and such} so they'll likely get driven around), where at least 3-5 people are going to handle it on it's way into a semi-truck. Now depending upon where you live and what kind of UPS facility it starts at, it's likely going on it's first truck to a hub stop, where the whole process is going to be repeated. It's highly likely that it might go through 3 semi-trucks and associated stops before it gets back onto the brown truck to go to your address.

Keep in mind that things need to be packed tight in the semi-trucks so that 1) they can maximize space, and 2) things are not going to move. So your tuba is going to be snug with everything else around it, and likely as it's heavy and big, it's going to end up on the bottom of the pile, with lots of things on top of it.

This then is my synopsis of your tubas' journey on UPS/Fedex. Likely over 14 people are going to handle it on it's journey, and possibly many more. This doesn't even include where it might go if it doesn't go straight to its destination.

Now, Greyhound: With no personal experience, I don't see it being moved around a warehouse very much, it won't have many/if any things stacked on top of it in the bus, and it shouldn't find itself very high above the ground in it's journey. It might take longer to get there, but its journey shouldn't include being tightly packed with other boxes, lots of handling and moving around a large warehouse multiple times on its journey, and it ought to have a much happier trip.


My personal thoughts then lead me to use Greyhound not only to save money, but because it's going to have a safer trip. Of course, without good packing why not hire your neighbor's kid to take it there on his bike....

Rob "worked for UPS for a couple of years" M

[Cowgo]

I've always had great success with Greyhound. I've probably shipped and recieved half a dozen horns that way. I've usually been suprised that the horn has arrived earlier than the given ETA.

If there is no case, a cardboard box braced with rigid foam from home depot, bubble wrap, packing peanuts and a ball in the bell have always worked out well.

I hadn't thought of using AMTRAK. I'll check them next time.

Does anyone have experience getting a horn from overseas? What would the duty fees be approximately?