Monday, March 29, 2010

Mailing costs revised.



In 1965 or 1966 Anne and I bought this oil painting of Tower Bridge in London, England, probably from the artist himself. It was one of many paintings displayed for sale on the railings of Green Park. We brought it with us to Canada when we emigrated in 1966. It has been with us in Montreal, Elgin, Red Lake, and now in Ottawa.



A little while ago I added the picture to my Etsy site as a vintage item for sale. We have decided to do some down-sizing of our art collection, particularly as there are paintings and pictures in the basement that have no wall space for them.

In figuring out potential shipping costs, I contacted UPS since that agency also offered packaging services. UPS stated they would package the 48" by 18" painting for $64. I also obtained shipping costs from UPS to ship to California, to Vancouver and to the UK.


Recently I received a "convoe" (an internal Etsy email) asking if there was a less expensive way to ship the painting to England. A $400 to $500 shipping expense on a $200 painting seemed a little extreme. I researched the costs from Canada Post and found these were much lower than UPS, particularly if I shipped to the UK by surface mail (a ship) rather than by air. It would cost around $80 to ship to England using surface mail. It would take weeks to arrive rather than days, however.

There remained the question of packaging. In a 3.00 am "Ahah" moment, I remembered that my youngest son had recently bought some bedroom furniture from IKEA that came in handy sized flat boxes. I called him (but not at 3 00 am) and learned he still had the empty boxes. One, now in my basemant, can be readily adapted as a shipping box for the painting.

I revised the shipping costs for Canada, the US and the UK and am awaiting a sale!

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