Can anyone suggest a courier for guitars?

[Gooby]

I want to ebay a faultless Ibanez UV777BK, however Parcel Forces policy on musical instruments are as follows:

'If the value of your package exceeds this, you can take out our enhanced compensation cover for loss or damage, up to a maximum of £2500 per consignment, to give you total peace of mind. Musical instruments will only be covered up to £150 of compensation for loss or damage.'

Can anyone suggest a sensible service I can offer that I can use on a one off basis.

Cheers

Martin

This is sort of tech  question  :D

[hamfist]

I want to ebay a faultless Ibanez UV777BK, however Parcel Forces policy on musical instruments are as follows:

'If the value of your package exceeds this, you can take out our enhanced compensation cover for loss or damage, up to a maximum of £2500 per consignment, to give you total peace of mind. Musical instruments will only be covered up to £150 of compensation for loss or damage.'

Can anyone suggest a sensible service I can offer that I can use on a one off basis.

Cheers

Martin

This is sort of tech  question  :D

I always use http://www.ezdelivery.co.uk/, who are agents for DHL. cheap prices, and I've never had a problem with DHL killing any of my packages, and I do use them quite a lot, including sending a number of amps.

[Stevepage]

I've used DHL for shipping my guitars and amps that i've sold on ebay. Not had a single mishap with them. Everything has arrived in perfect condition, even when sending things to a different country.

[Philly Q]

Bear in mind that to get full cover for the value of the guitar will increase the shipping cost quite substantially - and if you're passing that extra cost on to the buyers it may put them off.

It's not just Parcelforce, some other couriers will only insure guitars up to £100 or £150.  Call me crazy, but I just take the risk.  It hasn't gone wrong so far, touch wood.

[Gooby]

Thanks for the input guys, I shall go with the DHL route. Looks like I can insure £850 ish for about £10 just need to toss up whether to or not. Post office certainly seems the cr@p option.

Cheers

Martin

[FELINEGUITARS]

Good packing is the answer

[ToneMonkey]

I had to go to the DHL offices to pick up a package once.  While waiting for the miserable cow on the counter, I noticed a sign telling me that I couldn't post pets in a standard package.  Glad they told me that, I never would have guessed.

[nfe]

When I worked in an instrument shop we used UPS, who I would always happily reccomend, we sent at least a couple of dozen guitars a day - plus all the other stuff - and in the 4 years of me working there I know of maybe half half a dozen guitars that got damaged that weren't 100% the fault of the packer.

Course, because we had an account with them we had more insurance as standard plus I guess were in a position to claim any loses against the business or whatever, which you wont have the luxury of, but I still use them if I have to send anything with confidence.

[ericsabbath]

DHL stole my friend's brand new Peavey JSX inside their facility :?
the amp was sent from canada, then passed through a lot of facilities... USA, mexico, panama, then when it arrived in the sao paulo facility, it went to the departure thing then disappeared
it was supposed to be delivered in 3 days and after 20 days they said they couldn't find the package (a huge amp inside a huge flight case) :x
he paid around US$1500 for the amp and spent about US$1000 on shipping
and he went to canada only intending to buy gear