Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

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Slimo
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Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

Post by Slimo »

Any recommendations/experience with this? I am looking for a new guitar in the near future but am always turned off by the prices in NZ (I know shipping and import taxes are painful)..

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Re: Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

Post by godgrinder »

Thomann and Andertons are good. They remove EU VAT for overseas customers and their postage are on the cheaper side.

Not too sure if they can still ship guitars with rosewood though, you might have to stick to maple and ebony.
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Re: Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

Post by sunburster »

I've imported guitars many times, all with rosewood boards because I greatly dislike maple (except on basses). Latest one was this past July. No problems with customs. It can be hard to find a store that will ship it in the first place, though. Some places will actually go through the whole process of getting a CITES certificate (Thomann does this for guitars over 1000 euros, or something like that, last I checked), which can take over a month after the time you pay. Ishibashi also does this for certain guitars.

If you're getting a maple or pau ferro board, you'll have no problems at all.

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Re: Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

Post by godgrinder »

sunburster wrote:Ishibashi also does this for certain guitars.
Ishibashi can only ship guitars with rosewood that they got before 2017. That's the tricky part as good ones don't last long over there.
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Soldano SLO100 x2 | Wizard MC1 & MC2 | Diezel Herbert
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Verellen Meatsmoke | Synergy SYN1 | Mesa Studio

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Re: Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

Post by godgrinder »

sunburster wrote:From what I understand they can ship anything made before 2017, or at least apply for a CITES certificate to ship them. They get new guitars in every week and many of them are available for CITES application. But not the new ones released in 2017.
That's what I got when I asked about an used guitar a few weeks back:
Ishibashi wrote:We already started to get export lisence for rosewood items,
but only for the guitars we bought before 1st January 2017.
Unfortunately we bought this guitar September 2017...
So we can not get the export lisence for this item.
Amps:
Soldano SLO100 x2 | Wizard MC1 & MC2 | Diezel Herbert
Fryette Pittbull CL | Marshall 2203KK | Krank Rev 50 | Mesa Mark 2A

Rack stuff:
VHT/Fryette GP3, GP/DI & 2/90/2 | Peters FSM/Chimera
Verellen Meatsmoke | Synergy SYN1 | Mesa Studio

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Re: Purchasing Guitars from Overseas

Post by Molly »

Slimo wrote:Any recommendations/experience with this? I am looking for a new guitar in the near future but am always turned off by the prices in NZ (I know shipping and import taxes are painful)..
Use the forum search tool. There are some pretty comprehensive threads from folk who've done just this.

E.g: http://nzguitars.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... as#p693745

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