Guitar packing and shipping guide.

DB1

MikeS said:

@DB1 ah! that's brilliant. Glad to hear it went well. That'll be you now. Now that you've tried it, you might treat yourself to a new guitar more often, safe in the knowledge that you have another option if you choose to flip. 

Oh yeah, that'll work well. 

fretfinder

DB1 said:

Just a word of thanks for the advice - posted a guitar for the first time yesterday. It was a Washburn that I'd had on sale for a while, and the only real interest, although it's a nice guitar, came from a chap on eBay. Anyway, he bought it.

Took the plunge and posted it following a lot of the advice and popped a couple of sets of spare strings in it, in case he fancied experimenting with strings over Christmas. Detuned it, packed it well, etc and used UPS.

I didn't have a UPS shipping bag for the address to go in, but clear clinfilm plus packing time was deemed good enough. Insured for £1000, next day guaranteed delivery, it was picked up from mine at 2pm yesterday, tracked, and delivered at about 9.30am this morning.

It was pretty easy, so thanks for the advice. I'd still prefer not post more expensive stuff, but that's really down to the potential of being messed around be the buyer, rather than an issue with UPS, who were great.

Someone tried to scam me for an amp this week, also sold via eBay, but luckily I send everything guaranteed next day delivery and tracked, so that didn't quite work out for them.

I think it was one of those guitars that I would have had a little trouble selling for a reasonable price if I hadn't have offered posting - and all for under £20 - so that was really instumental (if you pardon the pun) in helping sell it. 

Blimey Dave if you got next day guaranteed delivery with £1000 insurance from UPS for under £20, you did very well indeed!

FelineGuitars

GoldenEraGuitars said:

Impartial advice from someone who has shipped a lot of guitars... I’ve never slackened the strings. Is there a reason for loosening them? I’m sure I’ve read something online somewhere but I think it’s one of those “internet things”. 

I guess you ship mainly strats and teles and similar Scott?

I would always advise some detuning with a leanback headstock - especially a gibson style guitar. And with that done put some paper/card between the strings an frets to stop them rubbing.

It won't stop the box being dropped or thrown but it will reduce the whiplash back and forth that the headstock goes through when fully strung. 

All headstock breaks seem to act with the headstock pulled forward  and that isthe direction the string tension pulls so I'd say slacken it off. Worst that can happen if it's not the case isthat the guitar needs to be tuned up on arrival

DB1

Yes, seemed very cheap to me, but I'm not complaining. But it was a lie - it looks like it was £20.39.