Tech21

Hi,
Just a quick question for starters; We are thinking of moving to NZ probably in the next 12 months, I have a few vintage amps mostly Marshall (4 to be precise), consisting of two heads, two 2x12 combos (one is a 1969 Bluesbreaker) and two 4x12 cabs; one 1963 Bird 15 watt combo, a few transistor amps and a small amount of recording gear...oh yeah and 9 guitars. I am a little worried about having these stuck in a container on a ship for 5 or 6 weeks, can't fly them over due to the weight.
Has anyone had any experience shipping stuff like this over?

Thanks in advance

Buzzy--Bee

Hello, I lived in NZ for 18 months and gigged round pubs as "London Musician Simon Michael". While I didnt have vintage gear I brought with me - 1 Squire Strat, 1 Roland Keyboard, effects pedals, a Yamaha sequencer, a Shure SM58 mike and various other accessories and on arrival was charged NZ$1000 duty! This despite the fact that they were personal possessions and at the time of entry I had no intention of working with them for money. However when I left 18 months later the money was refunded!

I shipped them by sea in flight cases that I made myself and they arrived just fine. If you have any other questions about shipping please pm me - also, if you are intending to work as a musician, you only need to know 3 songs - The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, Delta Dawn (don't know the artist) and Living Doll by Chris Richard. Since I left NZ 7 years ago I have not picked up my guitar once as I got so sick of playing these songs!!!!

ianandhelena

how much do you want for the strat?

Tech21

So, Cream, Hendrix, Free, The Who, The Stones, AC/DC etc won’t go down a storm in NZ then?

FYI, a song called Delta Dawn was written around ’71 by Alex Harvey and covered by a few female country singers around ‘72/3, not my type of stuff at all.

Not happy if I am going to have to pay import duty on my own personal possessions, not happy at all about that, they are now rare amplifiers that I have had for years all made in the 60's and 70's and they are only replaceable in the UK for large sums of cash and probably impossible to find in NZ. I will contact the NZ customs people and make enquiries about this.
Isn't this the same as Customs saying that you have to pay import duty on a washing machine that you have owned for 30-odd years ‘cause you could use it to start a laundry business?

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

Buzzy--Bee

The Stones were OK, but the others would not have been appreciated much.
Kiwis of all ages are very into Country and Western and good old downunder classics (note many of these are actually American songs). As far as the duty goes, NZ customs in the UK will never give any guarantees that NZ customs in NZ will uphold, so anything they say should be treated as advisory only. Many many musical items are impossible to find or repair in NZ - when my Yamaha sequencer developed a fault I was told the nearest place it could be repaired was in Australia and the repair time was approx 9 months!!!!! Obviously as a working muso I could not afford this downtime so I had to buy a new Roland sequencer and reprogram all the songs!

Buzzy--Bee

Make me an offer!