The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Raphael, Consider yourself lucky with your UPS experiences. Mine was a freakin nighmare.. and I never wish to re-live it.

I WILL NEVER USE UPS AGAIN AS LONG AS I LIVE...and I only live 2 hours north of you in Melbourne....and Yes, I did use a UPS Store to ship out my package.

)

Tony K.

Edison Collector/Restorer

Tony,

If the the UPS Store did the packing, they are definitely responsible. Did you press the claim with the UPS Store corporate?

I once had $45k of clocks sitting in a UPS Store in Davenport, Iowa. After picking them up from the auction company I had bought them from, they refused to pack and ship them "until we get around to it". I contacted corporate and they solved the problem immediately. The stores are independently owned buy must complay with UPS standards.

Raphael

If I wanted to buy another machine I'd stick to buying local.edisonplayer

I agree with Raphael, UPS does a very good packing as far as what my local store does. I've never had anything sent by them received damaged by the buyer. I also pack a lot of my items, especially fragile items, myself and have never had a disappointed customer. If the items are packaged properly you should not have any problems. On the other hand I had a seller send me a suitcase of 36 brown wax cylinders that he just wrapped in cardboard with no packing inside at all. I guess you can guess what I found when I opened it. Sort of looked like chocolate chips.

Rich Gordon

rgordon939 wrote:I agree with Raphael, UPS does a very good packing as far as what my local store does. I've never had anything sent by them received damaged by the buyer. I also pack a lot of my items, especially fragile items, myself and have never had a disappointed customer. If the items are packaged properly you should not have any problems. On the other hand I had a seller send me a suitcase of 36 brown wax cylinders that he just wrapped in cardboard with no packing inside at all. I guess you can guess what I found when I opened it. Sort of looked like chocolate chips.

Rich Gordon

Had the same, suitcase already counts as a box. Just add some Styrofoam peanuts and you're all set - at least that seemed to be the seller's plan. The result was similar, but amazingly a few of the gold molded cylinders survived...

Andreas

alang wrote: Had the same, suitcase already counts as a box. Just add some Styrofoam peanuts and you're all set - at least that seemed to be the seller's plan. The result was similar, but amazingly a few of the gold molded cylinders survived...

Andreas

As far as cylinders go, I would never buy a wax cylinder from any seller on eBay and probably not from anyone else, either. The problem with wax cylinders is temperature change breakage, which can happen no matter how well they are packed. I have lost too many wax cylinders just from putting them on a mandrel of a slightly different temperature than the cylinder, let alone poor shipping. If the temperature changes in the truck or in a cargo hold on a plane (which definitely happens, since they are not temperature controlled) and then you open the package in a warm or cold room or if they are unloaded in a warehouse that is not the same temp as the package... you end up with useless pieces of wax.

Curt A wrote:

alang wrote: Had the same, suitcase already counts as a box. Just add some Styrofoam peanuts and you're all set - at least that seemed to be the seller's plan. The result was similar, but amazingly a few of the gold molded cylinders survived...

Andreas

As far as cylinders go, I would never buy a wax cylinder from any seller on eBay and probably not from anyone else, either. The problem with wax cylinders is temperature change breakage, which can happen no matter how well they are packed. I have lost too many wax cylinders just from putting them on a mandrel of a slightly different temperature than the cylinder, let alone poor shipping. If the temperature changes in the truck or in a cargo hold on a plane (which definitely happens, since they are not temperature controlled) and then you open the package in a warm or cold room or if they are unloaded in a warehouse that is not the same temp as the package... you end up with useless pieces of wax.

I don't buy cylinder records through the mail very often, but when I do (or when I've bought an interesting box that happens to still contain a "junk" cylinder), I always wait a full day before opening the packaging. This is especially true in winter around here, but I'd worry about opening a box in our central air-conditioned house in July or August as well. I take no chances - a full day to equalize the temperature.

George P.

I have shipped about 100 concert cylinders and several hundred wax cylinders in the past several years without and breakage. Again it all in the proper packaging of them. After bubble wrapping them I put them inside sections of PC that I cut to 5" and then shrink wrap them. For concerts I cut sections of 8" diameter concrete forms to put around them.

Rich Gordon

I recently purchased an edison model B from a friends collection
and I started buying some cylinders on ebay, of all the 20 or so that I
have bought only one has bit the dust. Normally I follow the procedure
that George uses, it was just the one time that I didn't and when I opened
the packages and unwrapped the cylinder container I actually heard a
pop from inside the container. when I took the cover off and looked
inside, yup just pieces, I heard the toilet flush with my money going down the
drain ( I should have known not to open it, it was the coldest day of
the winter here in western NY). Expensive lesson
Gene

rgordon939 wrote:I have shipped about 100 concert cylinders and several hundred wax cylinders in the past several years without and breakage. Again it all in the proper packaging of them. After bubble wrapping them I put them inside sections of PC that I cut to 5" and then shrink wrap them. For concerts I cut sections of 8" diameter concrete forms to put around them.

Rich Gordon

Rich, I want to buy stuff from you... I do the same thing when I send any fragile parts. I recently sent an early Columbia governor to one of our favorite members and decided the best way was to cut a piece of PVC and place the governor inside, then put it in a Priority Mail box and pack around it. That way, no matter what they place on top of the box or even if someone stands on it, the governor stays safe... It got cross country in perfect condition.

I have had needle tins, records and a diamond stylus mailed to me in ordinary envelopes... needless to say, most of the time it doesn't work.