Vintage TVs and couriers - What are the chances of survival?

[GreasedMonkey]

Hi all,

Has anyone here ever had a vintage TV collected / delivered by courier and did it survive?

I would like to increase my collection (Not a vast collection as it currently numbers only 2) but due to an ongoing back injury I cannot currently drive to collect anything. I have had a generous offer of an Ultra 6830 from a member here who has patiently waited for my back to get better but now seems it will not. Intervention is required by surgical means.

I have also seen another set on an auction site offering delivery, and if I am honest, I want them both.

Obviously I would have to check if the for member would be prepared to pack up the set on offer for a courier collection, but first I want to get an idea of weather this is even worth considering, or will I likely end up with a box of broken glass and a set going to landfill through no fault of its own?

Thanks in advance.

[paulsherwin]

I have never had anything with a CRT sent by general courier, and would be very reluctant to do so.

A better solution would be to contact removals companies at each end of the journey and see if any of them would be prepared to move the TV as a part load. This can be a very cost effective way of moving large fragile items, though you will have to be flexible about dates and times.

[Refugee]

It is possible to safely ship such items but it is not cheap.
You have to find a company that does palletised shipping. Most will not stack pallets unless you specify that they can for large shipments. Most senders will just hire a truck and driver and do there own loading and unloading for large shipments.
They are normally a fixed price per pallet.
The required packing skills differ from packing a box. Allow a bit of land around the edges of the pallet just in case.

[nigelr2000]

Try Shiply as they have some door to door couriers available they are like a broker for them. I had a huge oak cabinet shipped from my sister in law in Hull to mine in Norfolk and it cost about 50 quid but that was 9 years ago. Took a couple of weeks to happen as he needed to have a run that way but he used to pick up Samsung TV's for warranty repair so he was quite a careful man and really nice bloke too. https://www.shiply.com/

[Rejectostat]

Shiply might be worth considering. You pay something like 10% in advance, and the balance to the driver, so it is in their best interests to deliver it safely or they won't get paid. You can read how it works from their website. You can link the eBay listing direct into the website to receive quotes for transportation before the listing ends.
I have used them a couple of times, on both occasions they delivered okay, though for furniture I paid a (largish) premium for point to point transportation and carrying upstairs.
Not as cheap as a courier, but companies bid for the work so it should be a competitive option, and it is up to them to wrap it and bring it safely.

[nigelr2000]

Out of interest I tried for a fictional pick up TV from my sisters address in London to mine and got this quote

Your delivery of CRT Television has received a quote of:

£57 from WCR-Removals

About Us We provide a 24/7 service with 1 men for all types of deliveries and removals all over the UK. We are a team of friendly professionals with great feedback from customers. We have a modern navigation system in our vans and we will cover your goods with blankets and ensure they are securely strapped to prevent any damage during transportation. To ensure we can offer you the right quote and best possible service please provide following information: 1) A full list and description of the items for collection. 2) The floor number (flights of stairs/lift) at both the collection address and the delivery address. 3) Parking issues 4) Is dismantling/assembling required? (there will be an extra charge) -Wardrobe, Bookshelf, Sideboard, Chest of drawers (£25-£50/£25-£50 for dismantling/assembling) -Bed (£15-£50/£15-£50 for dismantling/assembling) -Table (£15-£50/£15-£50 for dismantling/assembling) -Desk (£15-£50/£15-£50 for dismantling/assembling) -Other item...

[patrickgnl]

I like small Japanese portable TVs (max 10” screen) and have bought a dozen or so on ebay and only had one arrive damaged. Having said that I also bought a VCR that arrived trashed, basically the package had been treated like a football… i bought a Sony 990um from Belgium and a couple of Sony 7” B&W from the USA all without problems. It all depends on the packaging, loads of thick heavy cardboard, cushion wrap, double boxing etc…. Neither the TV or the Vcr were well packaged. The best courier in my experience, UPS, the worst Hermes by a mile…

Of course that is for small sets, as for larger sets, I really don’t think it is a good idea. Couriers aren't geared up for it…

Patrick
North Worcestershire

[McMurdo]

if a vintage tv survives a standard carrier it will be by luck rather than judgement.
A same day despatch courier does not need the item packing and will lift the item into his van, drive to the destination and unload it, no hubs or sorting centres involved.

A client of mine often uses the national CitySprint company. I think they are franchised owner-drivers as they are usually local to the collection point. They use little vans like transit-connects or berlingos or that sort of thing.

https://www.citysprint.co.uk/

[G6Tanuki]

Could be worth looking-up the various office-moves/computer-relocations companies: in the past, when CRT monitors were a thing, I had one such company shift a bunch of Sun servers/workstations/monitors from Oxfordshire to Cheshire and they arrived without trauma.

[stevehertz]

It really does depend on how well it is packed, and as a consequence (or the other way around) the capability of the sender to do that. Unless you're buying from another collector, the chances are that the seller will not fully understand the need to, and indeed how to, protect the tube neck. In the early 90s when due to personal circumstances I sold a lot of my sets to a fellow collector in the US, he used a 'specialist' courier to collect them from me. I simply handed them over to the courier and he 'neatly' placed them in the back of an empty truck on the floor. I thought no more of it, those were the days when very little shipping of vintage radios and TVs were done - or at least as far as i was concerned. Many years later, the buyer told me that most of the sets had arrived with broken tubes, including a rare pre war Cossor 137T, so sad.

Personally, I would not expect a non-collector to safely pack a vintage TV for courier shipping. And even a fellow collector may get caught out if the courier decides to throw things around. Either do without or get someone else to help you out who knows what they doing who lives local and can deliver by car at some point in the future to somewhere near to you to meet up with them, something like that.

[GreasedMonkey]

Thanks all.

So I guess the general consensus is don't bother with your standard parcel delivery services (Hermes et al) if I want it to survive.
I shall look into citysprint as suggested, but I think the most sensible option is to just accept that I should just have a little patience and wait until I am back on my feet and can do it myself.

As SWMBO just said "You wouldn't be able to do anything with a telly if you got one at the moment anyway" - She does have a point.

[bobhowe]

Hi my 2p worth just drove 230 mile round trip to Doncaster today to buy a 90 odd year old radio as it survived WW2 and i would not like it getting damaged in the back of a Mercedes Sprinter

[IKC2E51R8]

Hi,

It is definatly possible, I live in Ireland and since 2010 Ive had about 20 sets brought over and quite cheaply too, only one of them ever sustained damage but even that was repairable.

Check out Interparcel.com and enter in the details of the package, the dimensions are not so important but the weight is.

I'll be having two sets brought over soon, that members on here have kindly donated.

[bluepilot]

I don't know about TVs but I gave up collecting radios years ago when they started arriving as kits of parts. It doesn't matter how well they are packed. When they get thrown around during sorting and transport any heavy bits inside can break loose. One radio for example had a heavy speaker and the mountings had broken out of the cabinet. The speaker then smashed everything else in sight. I can well imagine that the accelerations involved in being thrown around wouldn't do a CRT any good at all.

[slidertogrid]

I have used specialist couriers to transport TV sets with no problems. Not cheap but there is no point in saving money if the set gets smashed!
The pictures show what herpes sorry, hermes did to a Pye fenman....

Rich

[IKC2E51R8]

One thing i would advise is do not ever use Hermes. DPD usually deliveres my sets to Ireland and they'are always perfect, had one delivered in the last month, a 17" Philips and the set arrived perfect

[nigelr2000]

Just to chip in I use Hermes all the time for my ebay and in the last 2 years they have only damaged one parcel, why? Because I know how to pack things. If it has heavy bits immobilise them, pack out radios with newspaper to cushion it, use lots of bubblewrap How on earth do you expect them to handle thousands of parcels every day and treat each one like it is a glass slipper though if I packed it it would probably arrive undamaged. Hermes are dead cheap, don't care but pack it properly and it will get there undamaged. I send at least 7 to 10 parcels a week so as a percentage one in 2 years is pretty low.

[IKC2E51R8]

Originally Posted by nigelr2000

Just to chip in I use Hermes all the time for my ebay and in the last 2 years they have only damaged one parcel, why? Because I know how to pack things. If it has heavy bits immobilise them, pack out radios with newspaper to cushion it, use lots of bubblewrap How on earth do you expect them to handle thousands of parcels every day and treat each one like it is a glass slipper though if I packed it it would probably arrive undamaged. Hermes are dead cheap, don't care but pack it properly and it will get there undamaged. I send at least 7 to 10 parcels a week so as a percentage one in 2 years is pretty low.

Thats an excellent point which i fully agree with, they handled the one set that got damaged and i wasnt mad at Hermes. The set wasnt packed properly, in a box that was too big and very little protection within to stop the set from moving about. The seller refused to accept blame and in the end I just ended up mending the set as best I could and it works perfect and the only indication of damage is a small crack in the cabinet thats hardly noticable.

I'm just mad at hermes because twice in the last 6 months theyve Lost a package on me (one was a lovely little portable set i was really looking forward to) and I understand that happens however there customer service when things do go wrong is essentially non existant (at least in my experiance) and thats the main reason I said dont use them

[Radio Wrangler]

I think we'd better call a halt to this. All couriers and postal authorities have created horror stories, and most of us have our opinions of which may be more frequent transgressors. Without a lot of documented evidence being collected, this has to be considered anecdotal. It might still be true, though.

Companies have to use shipment firms to get their products to customers or to shops. One courier firm spread millions of dollars worth of Hewlett-Packard test gear along the M8 motorway due to an insecure roller shutter door. It was a big shipment going out via Prestwick. I've had personal stuff damaged getting here and stuff stolen in transit.

On the whole, whoever you use, very careful packing will usually make a difference. Double boxes with shock absorbing foam corners supporting one within the other to limit shock-g is the best I've found.

We did package drop tests on all new products and instrumented the transient loading.

Pack it as if you wanted it to arrive intact!

David