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We've had a lot of experience in buying from overseas. If you're thinking of buying a banjo and having it shipped from USA here's some free advice you should consider:
- Freight - freight costs have dramatically increased and shipping a banjo from US now costs between $260 US and $450 US depending on the dealer.
- When the banjo arrives in Aus, our dearly beloved government will charge 15% GST and Customs Duty - and they will levy that on the freight component as well as the cost of the instrument!
- At random, there can be an additional quarantine levy of $80 AUS and that will incur an extra charge of $10 for security. These values are ALSO subject to GST.
- Whatever method you use to send the $$ to US generates a conversion fee and/or transmition charge by the financial institution.
Other Considerations when buying from overseas:
- The banjo may be damaged in transit involving lengthy international phone calls to sort it out
- The banjo may not be set up correctly - or at all!
- The instrument may not be genuine - one banjo we rejected had a cheap, non-original tone ring.
- It may not be the instrument you ordered - a dealer we considered trustworthy sent us a complete dog of a banjo instead of the pedigree we ordered. It wasn't worth the freight costs, phone calls etc to put the order right. We sold it to a repairer for parts and wrote the dealer off our list of suppliers.
- New banjos offered by some dealerships don't include cases. This makes the banjo look like a great deal until you do your homework. Any instrument needs a case to protect it - especially if it has to travel half the globe.
- Most new instruments advertised by US dealers are subject to quality control but now and again a flawed instrument makes it through to an innocent buyer in a far off land. If you order as an individual, who's going to bat for you?
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