Hi all,
just wondering if anyone knows of a moving company that won't take my left arm to ship 10 boxes to Montreal?

Pickford's came round and quoted me £569
Whites quoted £625

They both want to charge me for packing and unpacking which I find absurd. Most of my stuff has been in boxes for the past year, but the boxes are not sealed, and when I arrive in Montreal, they'll remain boxed until late next year.

Any info or help is greatly apappreciated
TIA!

You could try Excess Baggage - they are a shipper not a removal company (so there are disadvantages). We were quoted less than £200/m3 but there are aconomies of scale (eg paperwork will be a fixed cost). Estimates of rates area available on their website for air freight and sea freight.

http://www.excess-baggage.com/sea_freight_prices.php

When we moved from the US to Canada (East to West) we shipped 31 large boxes with UPS. We originally had a mover booked and was quoted $1500, which we were happy to pay. However, the day before they were scheduled to pick up our stuff they backed out, telling us that such a small move would not be profitable for them. In a panic, we contacted UPS and were quoted $778. We packed our own boxes and UPS collected them from our apartment. When the shipment arrived in Vancouver, they contacted us and asked if we wanted their brokers to clear them through customs - which we did. The whole process took about 10 days and everything arrived safely and was delivered to our door in Vancouver. Don't know if there would be anything comparable in the UK, but this option worked well for us!! Good luck!

Tracey

I used Advance Forwarding (http://www.advanceforwarding.co.uk) to ship about 10 boxes (about 1m3) which cost £260 including paperwork (brokerage/customs fee was about $120). Advance Forwarding stored the shipment at their depot in the UK for about 6 months, I think it was about £250 for that. They were very helpful and professional.

Everything arrived in one piece and in very good condition!

Thanks for the advice everyone! I will contact them all, hopefully I'll get things sorted ASAP.

Advance Forwarding sounds hopeful as my situation basically reflects yours Tidge, thanks for the link.

Maybe there should be a thread where people can submit their shipment size and quote as a reference for others?

Good idea Milka, we'll also not be shipping a container or part-container's worth, only boxes, and am interested in other people's experiences. The bulkiest things we have are a couple of paintings and two guitars. The rest is books and folders.

I had a bass and a guitar - I just spliced two of my boxes together and put them in lots of bubble wrap, made sure that box went on the top of the pallet so nothing heavy would be on top of them. When I took them out of the box they were still in tune!

I think Advance Forwarding can supply custom-type boxes for these things as well, if they happen to be really valuable. (Jeez, I should really be on commission with them - but I suppose it's nice to share a positive experience for a change!!)