Dutton Vocalion Surround SACD Orders Sent by Royal Mail & Ascendia

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In the UK items from foreign shores are often franked by UK Customs - e.g. Mount Pleasant - so it can be possible to determine when the item entered the UK.

Do parcels from the UK to USA get franked by your Customs offices so that it would be possible to determine when they entered the U.S.?
 
In the UK items from foreign shores are often franked by UK Customs - e.g. Mount Pleasant - so it can be possible to determine when the item entered the UK.

Do parcels from the UK to USA get franked by your Customs offices so that it would be possible to determine when they entered the U.S.?

I'm not very educated on the system. I could ask my local post office what they know. :)
 
In the UK items from foreign shores are often franked by UK Customs - e.g. Mount Pleasant - so it can be possible to determine when the item entered the UK.

Do parcels from the UK to USA get franked by your Customs offices so that it would be possible to determine when they entered the U.S.?

I don't see any such markings on either of the packages I received yesterday, so my best guess would be, no, they do not get 'franked'.
 
I think the difference between the two shipping options D-V offer is that the cheap one is basically surface mail (aka 'boat mail') and the more expensive tracked one is air mail. Air mail seems to be sent on a weekly basis - I lived in the UK for more than 10 years and have family in both the US and Canada and sent plenty of stuff back and forth over the years, and air mail was almost always 5-10 business days unless something got lost.

Surface mail on the other hand is much slower, and more unreliable - I get the impression that maybe they wait for the shipping container to get filled up with mail before they put it on the boat, and depending on where they are in that 'filling up' process it could take a week, or a month. I've had surface mail stuff from the UK come as quickly as three weeks but also take as long as two months, which happened last year with some LPs a friend in London sent me last year.

Obviously there was some kind of problem over the holiday season this year with some packages going missing, but I would say if you're going to be put in to a state of existential angst waiting for stuff you've ordered you should pony up and pay for the more expensive tracked option. Otherwise pick the cheap option and just accept that it's going to take 30-60 days for your stuff to arrive and it will show up eventually.
 
I do a lot of ebay and Not sure that is correct anymore.I was under the impression they do not do surface mail overseas at all. When i ship international first class which is the slowest cheapest way, it still goes by air. They gave up boat mail several years ago. Shipping from here you can mail international first class up to 4 lbs, after that it is priority only. Both go by air.


I think the difference between the two shipping options D-V offer is that the cheap one is basically surface mail (aka 'boat mail') and the more expensive tracked one is air mail. Air mail seems to be sent on a weekly basis - I lived in the UK for more than 10 years and have family in both the US and Canada and sent plenty of stuff back and forth over the years, and air mail was almost always 5-10 business days unless something got lost.

Surface mail on the other hand is much slower, and more unreliable - I get the impression that maybe they wait for the shipping container to get filled up with mail before they put it on the boat, and depending on where they are in that 'filling up' process it could take a week, or a month. I've had surface mail stuff from the UK come as quickly as three weeks but also take as long as two months, which happened last year with some LPs a friend in London sent me last year.

Obviously there was some kind of problem over the holiday season this year with some packages going missing, but I would say if you're going to be put in to a state of existential angst waiting for stuff you've ordered you should pony up and pay for the more expensive tracked option. Otherwise pick the cheap option and just accept that it's going to take 30-60 days for your stuff to arrive and it will show up eventually.
 
That may be the case for USPS, which seems to be cheaper (and in my experience) better than other national postal outfits. Canada Post still offers surface mail as its cheapest option, and the Royal Mail page for their International Economy service doesn't specify if its air or surface, but they say they aim to deliver to North America in 6 weeks - given that it only takes 8 hours to fly a plane load of mail from the UK to the US, it seems unlikely to me that they'd just let things collect at a storage depot for 95% of the delivery time first. I suppose stranger things have happened though!
 
All international mail is by air to/from nz... no surface mail anymore
 
Just received my second order - both took almost exactly 30 days to make it "across the pond." Nothing is of an urgent nature and as long as my expectations are met consistently, no worries. Any order status inquiry l've made has been answered promptly and courteously. Glad they are making these quad recordings available. The quality has been uniformly excellent!
 
Nice, while yes, I received my replacements...I can't help but wonder what really happened to my original order? Someone else has them? Stuck in the corner of a shipping terminal somewhere (doesn't seem likely).

It's now been 70 days since original order and Dutton assures me they were shipped...so they must be somewhere....lonely as they must be. :mad:@:
Regardless of all my chatter - any new orders I place with them will use the tracking...even thought it's pretty costly I guess.
 
Nice, while yes, I received my replacements...I can't help but wonder what really happened to my original order? Someone else has them? Stuck in the corner of a shipping terminal somewhere (doesn't seem likely).

It's now been 70 days since original order and Dutton assures me they were shipped...so they must be somewhere....lonely as they must be. :mad:@:
Regardless of all my chatter - any new orders I place with them will use the tracking...even thought it's pretty costly I guess.

I just ordered four more (three classical plus Main Ingredient). I'm trying standard again as a test to see if the holiday crunch was the problem.
 
I just emailed Dutton Vocalion regarding an order I placed for the 5 Classical QUAD SACDs on December 22, 2016 which I have NOT yet received.

Another delayed shipment?:yikes
 
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