[Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question

[Stefan li Rous]

Huette replied to me with:
> Ah, Stefan, Giano lives in Germany ... It would cost a fortune to
> ship anything from there and
> would take at least several weeks, to a month.  That is a big problem
> for those living in Drachenwald.

Yes, I was aware that he lived somewhere in Europe. I believe I even  
mentioned the possibility of his camping with the Drachenwald folks.

Yes, the shipping might be high. I don't know since I've never had to  
ship things to/from Europe. But "high" compared to what?  I've sure  
that it is cheaper to ship stuff than to carry it as excess baggage.

I didn't say I had THE solution. I just figured it might give him  
some ideas to work with. The last few years the Pennsic folks haven't  
been exactly advertising the fact that individuals could mail/ship  
stuff to Pennsic. Probably because they don't want folks forwarding  
their regular mail there and such. So, that possibility might not  
even occur to him.

If there is a large spread in the shipping time for stuff from  
Europe, he may have to arrange to ship it to an SCA person who could  
bring it along with their stuff to Pennsic, since if something  
arrives a week or two before Pennsic, I don't know if the Coopers  
will hold it or send it back. Then again, before they started  
allowing non-merchants to ship stuff to Pennsic, one year I shipped  
my box UPS to the shipping office in Buttler? (the larger of the two  
towns near Cooper's Lake, but not the closest) and they held it there  
until I arranged to come by and pick it up. Unfortunately, the UPS  
website only listed one hour a day that that station was open for  
pickup, and they gave the wrong hour.

It has usually taken ten days or so to for my package to get from  
Austin to Pennsic. Surprisingly, it seems to come back quicker than  
it gets to Pennsic. Perhaps because I have sometimes put my dirty  
clothes in the box to ship and used the resulting space in my luggage  
for all the books I usually buy. :-) Federal Express is several days  
faster than the ten days for USPS, and cheaper, but until I moved  
they were on the other side of town, about 45 minutes away. Federal  
Express also has better logging of the package so you can see how  
close it is to Pennsic before you fly out.

I came across a number of surprises when I investigated how to get  
things to Pennsic. One was that it would cost me as much to ship my  
box by bus to Pittsburg as it would be to ship it as excess baggage  
on the airline. And I would have to go to downtown Austin and  
downtown Pittsburg to the bus stations to ship and retrieve it. Of  
course that is not an option for Giano.

Shipping my ~50 lb. box to Pennsic is between $24 and $30 if I  
remember correctly.

Even if Giano couldn't use all of the info I gave, I thought it might  
be of use to others, such as those in the wilds of Montana :-) or the  
West Coast, who might like to fly to Pennsic.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****