USA to UK postage help

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Ricold
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USA to UK postage help

#1 Post by Ricold »

You lovely people are some of the few international friends I have and would trust, and I need a little help.

I am trying to buy something that is incredibly hard to get inside the EU, but is relatively easy to obtain in the USA. This is the product: http://www.superdairyboytoys.com/produc ... =1285{1}20. (Looney Labs pyramids, specifically an orange mono-coloured set). Getting the multi-coloured sets of pyramids in the UK is hard but not impossible (They have to be imported as they cannot be sold inside the EU). Getting the single colour sets sold on that link is just not happening. So I'm looking to get them shipped in. The problem I have is one of international shipping. I have only found two retailers selling single colour sets, and both want over $95 (US) to ship them to the UK. For that much money I am almost better buying 5 packs of multi-coloured pyramids and binning the unwanted colours.

So I turn to my friends here. Is there anyone here in the US who could: 1) Investigate shipping options and prices. Every country knows it's own shipping companies better than others. 2) Order these for me, and 3) Ship them across to the UK?

I'll happily provide my full address via PM for calculations if that will help. Obviously I would have to provide the full address for shipping if anyone takes me up on this. I would paypal Or similar all costs in advance, no need to be out of pocket on my part.

Can anyone help?

(I've been told i should probably be looking sidelong at Shannar here)
Ricold, Not site owner any more, largely absent. PM me if you want me. PM Prince of Spires if you need the head Loremaster.
Shannar, Sealord
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Re: USA to UK postage help

#2 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

I'm in Switzerland until the 22nd, and lets face it, jet lag and everything that returning home after 11 weeks away involves will keep me occupied for a few days after that. But if a delay of a few weeks isn't an issue I'd be glad to help you out.
Shannar, Sealord
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Re: USA to UK postage help

#3 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

Here is the information I can give you though. Getting it shipped to my address was somewhere between USD 6 and 7 (I closed the window by mistake). Shipping to the UK would be about $14 for one set based on the weight they gave, another set probably wouldn't add much to the cost, a third would make it go up a lot. Way less than $95, but still a little over $20 in total shipping, which is more than the cost of the product. But still better than buying a bunch of extra sets I suppose.
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Ricold
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Re: USA to UK postage help

#4 Post by Ricold »

Delay of several weeks is not an issue.
Shannar, Sealord wrote:Here is the information I can give you though. Getting it shipped to my address was somewhere between USD 6 and 7 (I closed the window by mistake). Shipping to the UK would be about $14 for one set based on the weight they gave, another set probably wouldn't add much to the cost, a third would make it go up a lot. Way less than $95, but still a little over $20 in total shipping, which is more than the cost of the product. But still better than buying a bunch of extra sets I suppose.
I'll see about getting some more exact values for weight and volume, but the single set is probably similar in both to three metal miniatures.

The fun thing is I only need and want a single set of these. One case where more is not actually useful. (see below if you care why)

While ~$20 for shipping may be more than the pyramids cost, I was under no misconception that shipping would cost at least as much as the pyramids. I'm just grateful the answer has come down from 5x the cost.

With the provided numbers, would $45 cover your time and effort? There should be no packaging cost, as I assume Superdairyboy will be shipping them out in a reasonable package to reduce their own shipping costs.

If there's someone else to receive them back in at home, I might ask if it is convenient for you to order them sooner so I know they can actually be ordered? If this is going to go wrong, I'd rather find out sooner rather than later. If this is not convenient then don't worry. Then the re-shipping to me can happen any time in the next several months. Once I know a set exists and this process works, I can hold off actually getting hold of them.

I'll hopefully say this several times. Thank You.

---

For background. If you've never played any of the games with Looney Pyramids, I highly recommend it. There are over 500 games created that use them, and at a basic level they're just generic game pieces. Over the years Looney Labs have released a variety of pyramid based products... and over the years the style of these has changed.
Before I collected them, the pyramids were originally available in tubes of a single colour. So you bought fifteen pyramids, five each of small, medium and large in a tube. However Looney Labs decided to try selling them a different way, and so produced two boxed games, Zendo and Ice Towers, each containing 60 pyramids in four different colours. Getting hold of an original boxed Zendo set is on my list of grail games that's never going to happen*. Note that those four colours were different for the two boxes (Red, blue, green, yellow for Zendo, cyan, purple, clear and white for Ice Towers). After these started to die off, their next product was called Treehouse, and was available in two different flavours: Rainbow contained fifteen pieces, three of each of red, blue, green, yellow and black. Xeno contained the same in cyan, purple, clear, white and orange. These two colour sets have persisted today, and have caused a few problems for completionists. Compared with current products, if you happened to own Zendo or Ice Towers, you were a colour short. Without single colour sets available, there is no easy way to fill out an old Ice Towers or Zendo set to cover all the colours evenly.

(*When I put Zendo on the grail list, I also put Ice Towers there, with the same assumption that I'd never see a copy.......)

Back in probably 2008 ish I obtained five rainbow treehouse sets, and have been playing a variety of games with just fifteen of those five colours. Earlier this year I kickstarted Looney Labs latest pyramid product, called Pyramid Arcade. My lovely other half knows my love of pyramid games, and also decided to kickstart a copy for me as a present. Notes were eventually compared... and I have no problems getting hold of two copies. More play opportunities. So I have a ton of pyramids coming already when I about six weeks ago I found a retailer selling a copy of Ice Towers. Out of print since 2006, and one of my grail games, I bit instantly, no regrets. Except, as I noted above, there are no orange pieces. Back in pre-2006 when it was printed, you could buy single coloured sets officially. You can't any more. I know, I emailed Looney Labs and asked.

I don't like having an unbalanced collection. Right now I have fifteen pieces of each of the ten standard colours, except orange. I have another 24 of each of all ten coming from kickstarter, but that will still leave my collection unbalanced due to having less orange than anything else.

So I went to try and source fifteen orange pyramids, I mean, how hard could it be?

How wrong I was.
Ricold, Not site owner any more, largely absent. PM me if you want me. PM Prince of Spires if you need the head Loremaster.
Shannar, Sealord
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Re: USA to UK postage help

#5 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

The post-office is currently saving all my mail for me, in what I fear will be a rather large box by the time I arrive home. If your happy with that arrangement just shoot me a pm and we can exchange info.
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Re: USA to UK postage help

#6 Post by Ricold »

PM sent
Ricold, Not site owner any more, largely absent. PM me if you want me. PM Prince of Spires if you need the head Loremaster.
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Re: USA to UK postage help

#7 Post by Ricold »

With that Very Helpful Elf, look what arrived in the post this morning?

Image

(Although they were stacked better for posting)
Ricold, Not site owner any more, largely absent. PM me if you want me. PM Prince of Spires if you need the head Loremaster.
Shannar, Sealord
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Posts: 4031
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2004 2:10 am
Location: Patroling the Sea Lanes

Re: USA to UK postage help

#8 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

So that's what they look like. I have to admit I was a little tempted to play with them before shipping.
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