WANTED: US/HM 1998 Silmarillion Hb (Nasmith)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Silmarillion- ... D1%26sd%3D271199598821%26

There is one on ebay right now in the US for 10 dollars buy it now.

Cheers! --that is cheap. It's in the US though (> Find answers: "This seller doesn't offer international postage"). Plus, as I said, postage for this book is not going to be cheap. You'd probably struggle to get anyone in the US quoting less than double the Buy-it-now price to post it over to the UK.

BH

Postage: I agree with Khamûl, a book this heavy will be $25+ to ship to the UK. I really miss the surface shipping option, which apparently is no longer available through any shipping service (that I can find). Airmail only.

Book: It is a nice book. I have a copy (two actually, one US and one UK) but they are not for sale, Ted made a nice full page sketch in each for me so these will never leave my hands!

UK availability: did you try Amazon third party sellers? Quite a few copies there (shipped from USA) and Amazon caps the shipping they can charge to under £3.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Silmarill ... collsguid-21&linkCode=osi

One additional note on shipping from the US internationally - there is an Airmail M-bag option for a large shipment of printed matter to one address. From the US to the UK it is $4 per pound, 11 pound minimum (so $44 minimum). Limit 20kg (44 lb) max.

So if you want to put together a large order of books from one seller, shipping can average out to be quite cheap. The seller has to be willing to do the M-bag option (which requires going in to the post office and filling out forms and getting the bag, etc.)

Note that the M-bag rate is available to other countries as well, but is slightly different, ranging from $3 per lb (Canada) to $6 per lb (Afghanistan). The 11 lb. minimum still applies.

Off topic, but postage everywhere seems to be getting steep. And if you are unlucky enough to live in Australia, buying second hand books has become prohibitive, except for the expensive stuff where the postage isn't the biggest component of the purchase.

Fortunately, my in-laws are in the UK, so I bombard them with parcels from eBay through the year and my wife brings as many back for me as she can get away with in her luggage when she goes back each year. Just got a small suitcase of books delivered by my good wife last week, in fact!

In the old days, I would just buy the cheap stuff in the US and UK and send surface mail, but since that option is no longer available, I'd be stuffed if it wasn't for this arrangement.

Our own problem has been with Amazon UK. Postal charges from the UK to the USA likewise have increased, along with which are Amazon's own fees, and although sometimes we can do better ordering from Book Depository (no fees, free overseas shipping), they don't always have what we want. Beyond this is the problem of Amazon UK typically shipping to the USA via Deutsche Post DHL, which amounts to slow surface mail, and more than once we've had to complain about parcels that disappeared. We can't rely on Amazon, then, for books when time is sensitive, as when we want a first printing (we have to think what we're doing about the trade and deluxe Fall of Arthur). And then there's the issue of increased risk of damage, when a parcel is knocking about for six weeks or more (on an estimated arrival of about four weeks). One could pay for expedited shipping, but the cost is an arm and a leg.

Wayne & Christina

The postage situation is just a huge pain in the backside. Postage for items coming over from the US was always something I kept an eye on, but now it's literally stopping me buying anything from overseas. I mean, $25-30-40 to get a book posted over!? This is just far, far too much money. I'm looking at sellers asking for postage of £20+ for pamphlets & the like. It's just not affordable anymore.

As for Amazon --I intend to buy as little as possible from them (direct) from now on. (I already bought very little from them anyway.) I only bought two books on Amazon last year & haven't bought anything from them this year.

BH

Khamûl wrote:
The postage situation is just a huge pain in the backside. Postage for items coming over from the US was always something I kept an eye on, but now it's literally stopping me buying anything from overseas. I mean, $25-30-40 to get a book posted over!? This is just far, far too much money. I'm looking at sellers asking for postage of £20+ for pamphlets & the like. It's just not affordable anymore.

As for Amazon --I intend to buy as little as possible from them (direct) from now on. (I already bought very little from them anyway.) I only bought two books on Amazon last year & haven't bought anything from them this year.

BH

I basically no longer buy from the US at all. The problem seems to partly be eBay, because the postage estimates it generates are by no means the cheapest way to post. The flat rate USPS boxes were always the cheapest (maybe $20 to Australia, but other USPS services were often twice as much). Now it seems like sellers just go with the most expensive default option, which seems to be $40 - $60 for a regular hardback, which is insane. Postage from the UK isn't nearly as bad, but unless it is something worth more than 50 pounds that I want to inspect before leaving feedback (which is rare for me these days), I just go with the in-laws option and accept that I won't see the item for a year (or more, if like this time there was too much stuff for my wife to bring back :)).