Share your Greyhound tuba shipping experience....

[tubajon]

Don't do it unless you are traveling with your horn(s). Theft is very common. -Jon

[b.williams]

So, do you need an account to ship by GPX? Or can you still just ship by dropping it off at Greyhound station?

Just drop er off.

[TubadudeCA]

I'm sure this is covered somewhere... I just missed it. But when shipping via greyhound, should you ship the Tuba in the gigbag or case? or is it okay to just send the tuba in the nude?

[Michael Bush]

I'm sure this is covered somewhere... I just missed it. But when shipping via greyhound, should you ship the Tuba in the gigbag or case? or is it okay to just send the tuba in the nude?

I pack it in a big box as if it will have to survive WW3. There's a great thread on here somewhere about how to pack a tuba for shipping.

[PMeuph]

I'm sure this is covered somewhere... I just missed it. But when shipping via greyhound, should you ship the Tuba in the gigbag or case? or is it okay to just send the tuba in the nude?

I've received a tuba that was only in its case before. I think that having handles on the case might make it easier for the employees to handle the horn with care. However as the case will surely be dragged here and there, the finish on the case might get scuffed up a bit.

[mbeastep]

When I was studying at North Texas State in the early 1970s, a fellow student named David Kaplan purchased a decomissioned BAT from one of the service bands in Washington DC and shipped it out to Denton via Greyhound. It had a removable upright bell of 20 inches or so. Only the bell arrived. So far as I know, the body of the horn was never seen again.

[Donn]

I pack it in a big box as if it will have to survive WW3. There's a great thread on here somewhere about how to pack a tuba for shipping.

Many threads on that topic. Cases protect from `stab wounds', like the impact with a doorknob or table corner. It's harder to make a case protect from inertial impact, like a fall to the floor, where the skilled package handling employee uses the weight of the tuba against it like an aikido master. That's when you want gobs of stuff like bubble wrap, much more than will fit in the case.