What we’ve not been told is where you are.

For 300 miles you will want to buy the cover from Kevin Crowley and then rent or borrow a van to take the instrument up yourself, as others have said.

But in the interest of general information about how such things are often done, I can tell you that in most cases I take my instruments to an outfit in Portland, Oregon that specializes in the crating, shipping, storage and placement of fine art objects. I used to make my own crates and it is a nasty and unpleasant business unless you have a lot of space and experience. For the record, I use Artwork Fine Art Services in Portland. I take the instruments, wrapped in their covers, to them, and they build the crate and then broker the carrier. They are what is called a “known shipper,” so they have much less hair-pulling shipping things than individuals might have. And if anything involves leaving the country they deal with customs and other paperwork as well.

They are not cheap and the shipping fees are not cheap, but the instruments arrive in perfect safe condition, and usually still in tune. I used to have them send across the country by air freight, but it turns out that in many ways surface is a better choice, not just less expensive, because the instrument pretty much stays in the same truck until the last mile or so, or perhaps all the way. With air freight things can end up sitting out on the tarmac between cargo flights.

It’s amazing what people can squeeze into some cooperative vehicles, but I would be slow to believe that you could fit a full-sized French double into a Honda Fit.

Shipping a big French Double from Portland to the east coast usually entails around $1,000 for the crate and about that for the shipping.

owen

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