Flight leaves UK 4th Sept. Shipping collection is booked for 24th August. My wife and I are both musicians. She has a sax that she may take as hand luggage. I have rather more and larger instruments.

I have three trombones (alto, tenor, bass), a trumpet, electric drum kit, four guitars (acoustic, electric, 12-string, bass), and a didgeridoo. Obviously I am not going to take any of those as hand luggage or even checked luggage, so they'll all be shipped. Our shipping company has said 'no problem', they make sure things such as this are placed on top of boxes so as not to get squashed. It is quite an expensive collection of gear though...

What are people's experiences of shipping musical instruments? Did you trust your shipping company or use a specialist (if there is such a thing)? Were they insured? Any hints/tips in general?

Cheers

Its not just being squashed... Heat/water damage or being completely lost at sea can be an issue.... So Make sure they're insured... Then at least if they are damaged you can replace them....

My violin came with us as carry on..... But she's very special

We had to take a cello, so had our shippers make a special crate for it. It also had its own hard case so that was extra peotection. Music and instruments are more expensive out here, so the extra up front expense of shipping things over safely was woth it. And very definitely insure them.

I insured my cello and viola with Allianz door to door. We didn't have a special crate and my cello survived in it's hard case with some extra padding and lots of FRAGILE stickers all over it. It's been valued by a string maker here and he said it hasn't suffered at all from the trip. The case lost a clip for the strap but apart from that it was ok. The viola we wrapped up in towels (in its case!) and fashioned our own box for it out of cardboard. This has also been recently valued and survived well.

The valuer in the UK who sold us the hard case for my cello said that air travel was actually worse than the ship as the temperature and pressure changes were much more dramatic in the air.

Which is why my baby came with me in the cabin

Yes, that's what he advised, but no way could we afford (or manage) an extra seat for my cello along with the seats for the 4 year old and 7 month old!!!

I sent 4 electric bases one acoustic bass one acoustic guitar two electric guitars one drum kit and one keyboard, and everything arrived fine the only damage I had was on a fender precision bass the nut has gone a little brittle and will need replacing as it is causing the E string to buzz a little.

I forgot to add that they were all sent back to the UK Where I am at the moment (temporarily I hope) and that is all the damage. All the guitars were in hard cases though. The Drums were packed individually with bubble wrap then put inside each other all skins were removed too.

Oh and slacken all guitar strings

Hard cases: yes, I have to invest in a few. My electric is in a well padded soft case, but that may not be enough. Others are in fairly flimsy cases. eBay here I come.

My drum kit is an electronic kit so hopefully just a case of winding up the wires, some bubble wrap around the pads & brain, and surround with clothes.

Good idea about the strings - that hadn't occurred to me

This thread may be useful

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=750597

It is - thanks