“FF” bought my 1947 Ariel Square Four engine in pieces. He lives in Queensland, Australia and I’m in the UK.
The boxes arrived within 8 days of shipping. Oddly, two of them arrived a day earlier than the heavier one. There was a small debate on the decision to ship two heavier crates, or split things up and with three crates. I was happier with three crates as it lowered the potential for damage with shippers dropping the crates.
It takes quite a time to safely pack heavy parts. I hear horror stories about people receiving a cylinder head for some rare motor with just a few fins left on because the seller simply placed it in a cardboard box with some loose packaging. That’s definitely not the way to pack heavy items. They tend to cut through packaging and end up in the bottom corner of a box where they have the most potential to be damaged.
If you’re buying heavy items, like gearboxes and engines, please make sure the seller understands how you want it packed. Ideally get it packed in one of those supermarket storage crates with interlocking lids and plenty of packing all around the item. If it’s an engine, you need a good 120-150mm of packaging on the bottom layer, with 100mm all around. I usually use a combination of foam packing (used for new TV’s) , some screwed up plastic sheeting that has some flexibility and some polystyrene in important places.
Labelling: Get it right first time. If you don’t get it right, you will either have to pay more import duty, or you might see the item return to the sender. You will need to use a shipper to do all of the handling and will need to provide tracking all the way. There are many important elements to the labelling.
Here are a few tips.
- You must include the Commodity Code (Google it). Without this, Customs might reject it or they may apply their own tax which is likely to be more than you were expecting
- Always make sure the shipping cost is written on the customs documents. Without this, the import duty could rise dramatically. I once had a case when DHL in Italy decided to impose their own “standard shipping tariff” because the shipper hadn’t filled in the correct box. Despite the label clearly showing the shipping cost of about £37, they decided to impose a charge of around €240. This is important because most countries calculate their import taxes on the combination of the declared value and the shipping cost, combined. In this case, the import duty was roughly an extra £38.
- Don’t massively under-declare the value. Customs will know everyone tries it on. If you under-declare by a vast amount, they will simply impose their own value which is likely to be more than the price you sold it for! It seems that some wiggle-room is tolerated though.
- Don’t alter the labels provided by the shipper. However, I usually add a label on the side of the package that gives a return address. I know it’s on the printed label, but it’s just in case the printed label gets damaged, or goes missing.
