Shipping a cabinet from the US to UK advice

Judder

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Hi everyone

A Happy New Year for tonight!

I've finally managed to source myself a Defender cabinet in the US (without monitor so if anyone has one for sale...).

The challenge I now have is that I have to get it from current location in the US, to a freight shipper and then guessing on a container/boat over to the UK.

Has anyone done this before (guessing so seeing as the Williams games are US made) and does anyone have any contacts/advice they can share as the best way to do this?

Also what type of packaging do people put around their cabs? Guessing bubble wrap might not be good enough so maybe light wood or double layers of cardboard.

Many thanks in advance and hope this doesn't cost me a small fortune!!
 
it will cost you a boat load,you was better off buying here in uk,they come up often.chances are that when you actualy get the cab here you will have paid more than what one would cost here in uk.there was one for sale if it still isnt at j+.

i would think we would be talking something in the region of around £600 when all the charges are applied which they will be as you are importing from usa,if you had sourced it in europe theres no customs charges as you are staying inside the eu.

when and if you get things sorted gives us an update as to what happened and pics of cab.
:)
 
agreed, defenders pop up regularly in europe and although they often sell for silly money (especially in the uk) it will definitely be cheaper to buy a complete one over here - and with over here in mean europe!
 
Agreed. Source one from the UK. I've bought two in the last 6 months. Defender is a cab that fairly common in the UK and not too difficult to find.
 
Monitor

If you do end up shipping the game to London, have the seller get you a monitor! If your going to spend all that cash on shipping, get it complete.. As it will save you money in the long run..
 
If you do end up shipping the game to London, have the seller get you a monitor! If your going to spend all that cash on shipping, get it complete.. As it will save you money in the long run..

Years ago I shipped my DOT to England. I don't remember too much about it since the buyer set up all of the shipping. But what I had to do was search down a synthetic (plastic) pallet to build the crate on. Seems England will not allow crates in that have wood pallets.

Just my experience....good luck with the deal.

Tom
 
Oh yeah

Your pallet comment just reminded me of some issues I had shipping a cab overseas. The game was stuck in customs for a while cause anything made of wood had to be fumigated because of termites.. It didn't have any bugs, but it was made of wood and their policy was to bomb anything that came from the US..

Hopefully that won't happen to u.
 
Heh, my buddy brought a wood carving back from Africa. Turned out, the carving had a termite in it. So, he fumigated it--like ten times. And the bug still ended up eating his carving to bits. That little bug made him so mad 'cause he really liked that carving.

437761-Royalty-Free-RF-Clip-Art-Illustration-Of-A-Cartoon-Termite-Dining-On-Wood.jpg
 
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Thanks everyone for the replies.

I've put up the details on UShip - www.ship.com - as some of the companies there specialise in this kind of thing.

Will let you know what they reply but as said it may simpler just to put it back on eBay and buy one in the UK!!
 
agreed, defenders pop up regularly in europe and although they often sell for silly money (especially in the uk) it will definitely be cheaper to buy a complete one over here - and with over here in mean europe!

Have a spare Tapper board that came with one of my Tron board sets if it will help your quest? :)

Alex
 
I shipped a Galaxian cocktail table to the UK back in '03. It was picked up by Yellow Freight. They handled everything, but I had to have some sheet with customs mumbojumbo on it. The guy said he was going to use some sort of step down transformer adaptor job to be able to play it on UK electricity. He also wanted $10 in quarters for a more authentic play.
 
thx alex, what about the wood and glass that go around it? ;)

Well.. it actually came to me as part of a Tron cabinet part-out I bought (from Australia of all places) so I got the joystick and spinner control panel all restored and two board sets of the game.

After identifying the boards I had 2 x video, 2 x Super Sound I/O and 1 x CPU with an extra different CPU board.

Turns out this was a Tapper CPU board so no real use to me so just sat there at the moment! :)
 
I shipped a Galaxian cocktail table to the UK back in '03. It was picked up by Yellow Freight. They handled everything, but I had to have some sheet with customs mumbojumbo on it. The guy said he was going to use some sort of step down transformer adaptor job to be able to play it on UK electricity. He also wanted $10 in quarters for a more authentic play.

Thanks for the advice and I'll investigate that one and had totally forgotten about the 110V versus 220V - will need to work out what to do about that if I ever manage to get it over here!!!

Alex
 
Just buy a 500W step down xformer online. You'll probably be able to fix it in the cab to keep cables tidy. Simple plug and play. I run most my US cabs off step downs, no issues.

Don't forget you'll be paying 20% import duties on this (price of the machine AND shipping) - You can use wooden pallets - IF they're specifically chemically/ heat treated. if you can use man made materials, I'd go down that route.

While you're at it, I'd buy a few more working Defender boards sets and ship them over inside the cab. Sell them in the UK and offset the shipping cost ;)
 
I shipped a Galaxian cocktail table to the UK back in '03. It was picked up by Yellow Freight. They handled everything, but I had to have some sheet with customs mumbojumbo on it. The guy said he was going to use some sort of step down transformer adaptor job to be able to play it on UK electricity. He also wanted $10 in quarters for a more authentic play.

There was some brief talk about shipping multiple games over in a container I believe.

I wanted to ship a Galaxian cocktail over to the Netherlands myself, but shipping a single game is cost prohibitive.

Where exactly did you ship the game and for how much?

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
Thanks for the advice and I'll investigate that one and had totally forgotten about the 110V versus 220V - will need to work out what to do about that if I ever manage to get it over here!!!

Alex

If you do opt to import from the US (and in my view you shouldn't) there is no need for a step down transformer - you just need to snip one wire, and swap another, on the connector from the AC harness to the power brick. Part of that connector acts in a similar way to the input voltage selection plugs commonly found on a lot of Atari cabs. Might need to change a fuse as well. Download a copy of the manual / schems - it'll show you what you need to do. But in all honesty, you're far better off waiting / looking for a UK based machine - they come up for sale regularly. It's not a rare cab - the only reason that prices are so high in the UK is that despite a good supply of these cabs they are still very much in demand.
 
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