yellowfruit

Hi folks!

Reading some interesting things about Pickfords here but hopefully it'll all be okay, not many other people will touch me as I've a tiny amount to move (desk chair, guitar, keyboard, printer, and 10 boxes!)

I'm getting a little confused with all the paperwork and wondered if someone could help me out. I've been reading through the CBP 3299 form, it would seem to me that all household goods (more and less than a year owned) need to be listed, would I be right?

What did people take to 'household goods' to mean? I mean, kitchen scales and knives don't really fit into the personal effects category?

Finally, and this is the big one, it looks like a list of items is needed. How deep in detail did people go with this? 20 CDs, assorted stationery, 5 books or did people list each CD, each book, every last little item? I'd imagine if you were shipping an entire house that list would be huge!

Many thanks to anyone who can help me be less confused, this is even worse than filling out all the K1 documentation

Matthew

Weeze

I did my inventory room by room and generalised the small things. For example, Kitchen 25 cookbooks, pots and pans, kitchen utensils, china. I did it in excel and then put my cost alongside and replacement cost. Then I handed the whole lot over to the movers and they used it for the insurance and the other paperwork.

avanutria

I took household goods to mean items that we owned for use in our household or for personal reason - ie, not things used for commercial purposes. Pretty much everything, I guess.

List of items. We made an inventory list by bag/box (each with a unique number) and said what was in each container. If it only held clothes, it was marked down as "clothes". We had two huge boxes each half full with dvds and half full with stuffed toys (for weight management purposes, and they were still really heavy!) and they were listed as "dvds and stuffed toys"

We ended up with about 228 individual boxes/containers using this method. It actually helped a lot when it came to a) making sure everything arrived and b) figuring out what box to open when we were looking for things!

meauxna

This document might help you; it's from CPB.gov

http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/...ctt/moving.doc

You are a "Nonresident/First-Time Immigrant" The non-immigrant experiences of people on employment visas may be different than yours.


Not everything in this article applies to you as a K, but some of the travel info might be helpful: Immigrant_Visa_Arrival

Have you considered not paying to move some of this stuff? The desk chair, keyboard & printer can all be replaced here for very little (will the printer even work?). Some people have posted about using a courier for the boxes, at a much lower rate (especially if you send them on the slow boat).

avanutria

Good point - yes, unless the desk chair has some medical or sentimental importance to you, sell it/bin it and get a new one here. The printer may cause problems for you if it's not 110v compatible, and have you checked to make sure the right ink cartridges are available for it here? Might be a lot easier to sell that too and get a new one. You may be able to bring the guitar on the plane with you - personally I wouldn't risk a musical instrument on a shipping container if I could help it (I had three concertinas in my carry on bag, lol)

You could also rip all of your CDs to MP3 and then sell them through magpie.co.uk and that would save a lot of space. We did that with nearly all of our cds.

yellowfruit

It is starting to get very tempting to do just that, ship things by courier. From what you're all saying, it sounds like it would be much cheaper. I've been quoted £850 for shipping end to end, which includes all fees - so I'm told, only it doesn't.

The T&Cs suggest that I might also get charged a couple thousand extra if the CBP would like to x-ray my stuff which is very rare, and that 80% of shipments are getting examined at the moment. Hey wait, that doesn't make sense

The chair is nothing special per-se, it's £350 retail worth of office chair and was a gift to me from my parents. However, I know that they'd accept it back and they do need a new chair!

The printer will work on 110V, no problem. I've no idea if cartridges would be a problem, I'd guess not but who knows...

Of course, I'm flying United, and we all know what they do to guitars!

What I'm shipping is only worth half of the cost I'm already paying, if I have to pay extra fees then I'll be seriously out of pocket. I shall have to give this some serious thought and investigate the forum and have a look for folks that have gone this route. It would seem like the low stress route.

Thanks for the links and advice, I think I'll sleep on this one tonight!

avanutria

Oh, I mean as a carry on item, not checked. United's website says "You can carry on one guitar or similar or smaller sized musical instrument, which will count as your one carry-on item. The musical instrument, which may exceed 45 linear inches, must be able to be stowed under the seat in front of you or in an overhead bin or another approved stowage location. If space is unavailable prior to departure, the item must be checked as baggage."

Not exactly a slam-dunk...only carry on if space is permitting. So you might want to ship it separately with a company that has a good reputation for handling musical instruments.

Our stuff got x-rayed. I think the fees on this end (which were mostly x-ray charges) were less than $300. Others have had their things both x-rayed and searched.

meauxna

haha! That's great!
DH's Martin was snapped at the headstock on our final move over (grr, figures). His struggle to get that repaired actually turned into his hobby business and he's now Joe Refinisher/Luthier.
If anything does happen, you know who to call.

yellowfruit

I am encouraged by the fact that the fees may not be so high and that in this way I get to bring some of my home to my fiancée's. This I feel will make the place more ours than hers which I must say she is already going to great lengths to do for me and I appreciate that more than I let on sometimes!

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and go Pickfords, and we shall see where that leads us.

Thanks for your help folks as always,

Matthew

yellowfruit

So, talking to my mum and I'm back to square one! Guess I have to think this one out.

Has anyone found a good regular postal service that ships non-express for sensible prices?

It would seem that United is not really breaking guitars, it's secretly creating successful guitar related careers!

Matthew

removalizer

Whenever we ship goods to the states an inventory is always taken on collection listing each box with a brief description of whats in it. US Customs tend to trust consignments that have been packed by movers rather than owner packed.

Bob

Might be better off chucking them on a slow boat via the post office and leaving the chair behind...

meauxna

This was a great post from Ozzidoc: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=629133

If you use the advanced search on the word 'ship', USA forum only (no child) and select the last year and newer, you will find a host of threads to skim for ideas.

Our bad experience was with Northwest airline.. I'm pretty sure it was TSA that broke the headstock by not putting it back in the case correctly. But this was right after they were formed & started their searches and the claims process was a right freaking nightmare.
DH got over it by acquiring many new guitars, and the Martin lived to sing another song as it was.

yellowfruit

Thanks meauxna, looks very encouraging, I think I'll go this way.

I'd tried to search the forum for this topic but it's hard to know what to search on! More research is in order

meauxna

Were my search instructions no good? I found lots when I did it that way, but I can't post you a link for the result.