Shipping Cameras (Long)

[granson@nanospace.com (Grant Wilson)]

My wife and I spent a number of years shipping art and craft items via
pretty much every available shipper.  I have also purchased and sold
extensively over the net in the last 18 months.  Here are a few of the
costly lessons we have learned:

1.  Never, never, never ship ANYTHING via the U.S. Postal Service.  They
loose things.  Somebody in there steals things.  If something disappears,
they won't institute a search procedure until 45 DAYS after the shipping
date.  I use their Priority Mail for non-sensitive items, but that's it.
Right now they have disappeared a $250 Pentax kit, and the buyer finally had
to purchase elsewhere so he could have a camera for the Christmas season.
I'll probably never see it again!

2. UPS is a lot better than they used to be, due to the availability, now,
of "Ground Track", a tracking number availabile for an extra seventy-five
cents that let's you track any shipment from point of entry to instant of
delivery.  The "hot set-up" when using UPS is "Three Day Select".  This
should really be called, "Stand-by Air", I think.  It has never missed for
me, and is a tremendous bargain.  I use it for any trans-continental
delivery.  In all the thousands of shipments we have logged with them, UPS
has lost precisely ONE (wouldn't you know, my daugher's Christmas present
camera about 4 years ago), but they paid promptly when I was able to produce
the receipts of purchase to document the value claimed.

The only quibble I have with UPS is that the COD return time is glacial.
You wait and wait and wait.  Finally, when you have forgotten the sale
entirely, you get a surprise in the mail.

3.  FedEx is flawless in every respect including COD turnaround (usually no
more than 48 hours).  Only cost sends me to UPS.

4. Larger items and art:  It is difficult to find a carrier to handle larger
items, delicate items and art.  We have had EXCELLENT service from Lynden
Air Freight.  They will ship pretty much any size, will pick up the goods,
and THEY WILL INSURE ART ITEMS.  Just try to get some of the other carriers
to insure a flat piece of paper for $2500!  Lynden is well known here on the
West Coast, and delivers nationwide, but I don't know if they have offices
nationwide.

Sorry for the long post, but this is an area where we have useful knowledge
and an opportunity to repay the kind responses to my many questions to the
leica and rollei groups.

Oh . . . double box everything, of course and pack with bubble-wrap, not
wadded paper; crate all delicate items.