Courier companies that will ship heavy items?

I think we've had this discussion before, but as far as I can remember no conclusions or recommendations were actually settled upon...

Baiscally I'm looking for a courier or freight company who will ship a very heavy item abroad for me. The item in question are my speakers plus their flight cases, the 2 flight cases when filled have a combined total weight of 120kg.

Now my problem is finding a company who will deal with personal exportation of heavy items. All companies I've tried so far have come back with the usual story, if you don't have a business account with us then we can't ship anything for you that's over 30kg. I don't really want to set-up an account with a courier company for what will be a one off transaction with them.

So any recommendations from folks who may have had personal experience of shipping big/heavy items abroad?

 

You may get the same story, but the company that Oracle is using to ship my stuff out to SF is Graebel Movers International. www.graebel.com. They are based in Washington but have offices in the UK.

Worth a try.

 

Henry, I've always used FedEx but never for any items over 30kg.
They've always been helpful, set up an account for me and it has been simple every time. I wouldn't worry too much about the account thing.

DHL also came up trumps when my CDT needed repairing after being damaged in trans.

 

What have I missed... what is replacing the veritys?

 

Try a Freight Forwarder. They 'consolidate' parcels from customers and send in their own containers. Much cheaper than couriers.
A company I used to use a lot for importing and exporting was:

Air & Cargo Services
Unit 13
Heston Industrial Mall
Heston
Hounslow
Middx. TW5 0LD
Phone number for exports used to be 0181 917 8920

 

Good one Voodoo... Gave FedEx a call earlier on this afternoon for a quote and they were happy to take on the 120kg and not require me to be an account holder either. :MILD:

Thanks for the other suggestions guys, I'll give some of the other suggestions a try for comparison.

Isaac, you haven't missed anything. Still have the Veritys, just following up an email enquiry from a guy on Audiogon who *might* be interested. He was just asking about shipping costs.

I've a short list of 2 or maybe 3 speakers which I'm thinking of replacing the Veritys with. Am looking into moving house at the moment, so probably won't do anything until I know what sort of living/listening room I'm going to end up with.

 

Nice one

 

Henry,

Be very interesting to see what they charge you for this, My B/H 2's cost me $550 US on a 3-4 week slow boat trip, which I thought was pretty fair, Voodoo's Wadia was £145 to lux from the UK 25 KG's, but the size wasn't that big, some couriers do charge extra for 'odd' sizes, so be careful here.

 

Hi Tone,

The quote from FedEx was £350. That was for a 2 day express service to Italy and included insurance for up to £5k. I ended up giving approx dimension of the flight caes as I didn't have the exact measurements but I measured them up last night so now know for next time. So, not the cheapest option, but to be honest not as much as I was expecting, especially considering that it's an air freight service and the insurance value.

The buyer has now pulled out anyway, as he says that the item he was hoping to sell to fund the purchase of my speakers (a 2004 made Koetsu Onyx Platinum cartridge) has fallen through.