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Transporting a pin to the UK

Joyride

Joyride

Registered
10 Years
Joined
Apr 5, 2012
Messages
115
Hi all,



I just bought a very nice Williams Taxi from a seller in Berlin. Price was great (£500), so I jumped at the chance to own a machine that I spent many hours on back in the day.



Now to the fun part - getting the bugger back to the UK!



I've put a listing up on Shiply.com - have used them in the past to get deliveries arranged.



As a last resort I'll drive over there and pick it up myself, but if any of you have transported a machine back to the UK I'd be very interested in hearing about your experiences. Did you get someone to do it for you? How much did it cost?





Shiply have an interesting page about shipping pinballs (www.shiply.com/guides/how-to-transport-a-pinball-machine). Any other gotchas that I should keep in mind?



No matter how I end up getting Taxi back to my living room, this is going to be a fun story! I'm leaning towards the epic road trip to Berlin!



Rob
 
I'd go for the road trip option.....would be awesome
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I've done it 3 times last year, twice to Belgium and once to Southern Germany. I went via the Eurotunnel which was great, and you can get good deals online. It does start to get costly, what with fuel and accommodation etc.



Getting it yourself is a buzz, and you get to meet other pinheads.



I've also used Shiply to transport a pin to Germany and it was awful. The guy had good feedback and was the cheapest at £180, but turned up in a ****ty old van stacked to the roof with motorbikes, furniture, and other assorted crap.



There was no room whatsoever for my pin but he insisted it would go in. He spent over 2 hours on my drive packing/repacking the bikes and eventually dragged/kicked/pushed my machine on board. I spent the next 2 days sweating on whether it would arrive or not as in the rush to get away and not miss his ferry I let him go without any receipt or paperwork! I got a text from him on day 3 to say the pin had been delivered, quickly followed by an email from the buyer to say the machine had been damaged in transit (A big scrape on the perfect side decals). Strangely the buyer was not bothered and was happy with the machine so I didn't go any further, but I would never use that clown again.
 
You pay peanuts you get monkeys
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, I used Shiply in the past, paid top whack and still got a monkey :confused: , the mind boggles, I would go road trip if you can be bothered although it's a fair old hike and Germany is BIG.
 
Well, if I do go to Berlin next week (which seems highly likely) to pick up the pin, perhaps I should stop for a photo op with Taxi in front of the Brandenberg Gate. Extreme pinball, anyone?
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Will definitely document the road trip. My friends in east Holland are already bewildered by it all: "but... Berlin is another 5.5 hours from here?! And you're doing all this for a flipper?!"



Ohhhh, yes.
 
I have used Dachser in the past from Germany for less than £150 and DHL for a couple of pins that went to Scandinavia. I'm sure if you search the group for experiences you will find some. As long as the people in Germany can get the machine on a pallet, you should be able to get it here for well under £150.



If you can't find anything reasonable, contact pauls50s in Germany as he ships pins all over europe often. At the end of the day, Taxi is a cheap machine which should cost you no more than £600 over here for a nice one, if it were a high end pin I could understand the road trip but it will be 2 days of your life and over £300 (probably closer to £500) in costs
 
This trip is more a case of visiting some friends in Holland en route, having a night out in Berlin, heading back to Holland for another night out, and then coming home with a reasonably priced pinball in the back of my car.



Should be a fun few days!
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Hi there, I imported my TAF from Germany, nothing to pay form EU TTBOMK, however if it comes from the US, watch out, just had a bill of £63 import tax today on 14 little martians, christ I had to sit down, then I went into code blue and had to be resuscitated :eek:
 
I'm actually in the process of having a pin shipped for the first time right now - got a machine in transit from Germany as I type this. Went for a more expensive shipping option for peace of mind and full insurance, cost just under £200. On a related note, does anyone know how long it normally takes for a pin to arrive from Europe? It was picked up on Tuesday afternoon by a Germany logistics company called Dachser, and I've been told to expect a call from a British forwarder to schedule a delivery time. Those of you who've had a machine shipped over before, approx how long did it take from collection to delivery?
 
About 5 days, it may well come from Dachser (they deliver over here too), so expect it to come to you from Tuesday onwards. You normally get a call from the forwarding company the day before they want to deliver
 
Cheers for the info, sounds good. Really hoping they deliver Tues as I'm not working and ideally I'd like to be here when it arrives. Do they normally give you an estimated time when they call or is it the standard between 9 and 5 most delivery companies give?



The impatient part of me is not at all happy about waiting for it to get here!
 
JustLikeMe' date=' post: 1695625 said:
Cheers for the info, sounds good. Really hoping they deliver Tues as I'm not working and ideally I'd like to be here when it arrives. Do they normally give you an estimated time when they call or is it the standard between 9 and 5 most delivery companies give?



The impatient part of me is not at all happy about waiting for it to get here!
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Just the day normally, but if you ask if the driver can call you when an hour away, they are normally accommodating
 
After driving to Berlin to pick up my machine a few months ago. Popped it in the back of my Jeep, wrapped it in blankets, and strapped it up for the journey home. When we got to Dover I was staggered that we didn't get stopped and asked about what was in the back. We just drove through without anyone even looking at us.
 
mufcmufc' date=' post: 1695629 said:
Just the day normally, but if you ask if the driver can call you when an hour away, they are normally accommodating
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Got a call from Dachser today, and they gave me the choice of delivery any day next week. Have it all arranged for Tuesday, and as you said they offered to call when they're about an hour away. Good level of service so far, if everything goes well on Tues then I'd recommend them for transport from Germany. Will update once the machine arrives.
 
Haha yeah, very excited about this one! Also kind of bricking it, I've never had a pin shipped before so I hope it makes it here safely. If you're ever going to be in London and feel like dropping by and having a go just drop me a line.
 
Cheers bud, I've managed to get both Tues and Weds off work so I'll have some to enjoy it - or should I say I'll have Tues night to enjoy it, and Weds to recover from the hangover! I'll update the thread re whether it made it here without damage once it arrives.
 
Which pin are you getting shipped? eBay? Did you get a good deal on it?
 
Tron LE - couldn't resist it. Found it on a german pinball forum with the help of a kind Belgian guy from Pinside. I'd say I got a fairly good deal seeing that they're hard to find and it cost me a fair bit less than a NIB AC/DC Premium would have, even with shipping taken into consideration. Also included a couple of extras installed - mirror blades and a backbox LED lighting kit. Its the first machine I've bought from abroad so it's been a bit of an experience organising it, and I'm still pretty nervous about the fact its being shipped, but hopefully come Tuesday it will all have been worth it!
 
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