Happy ending spare part story

We vintage collectors find our spare parts and items all over the world, a lot of times from other collectors here on the forums. Parts or items get shipped with postal services or international carriers and normally there are no problems, well mostly no problems. I have received  parts from Martin in DK with Danish and Mexican postal services, longest delivery time was 42 days. This of course brought me to find other ways of transportation. My son lives in Copenhagen, we visit him every year if possible, or he comes over here,

In July this year I picked up my BL/BM 5000 amp and receiver in Mcallen TX, well home in Mexico city I could open both and evaluate the spare parts needed.

Missing was 1 push button and 2 were loose, at the same time I bought a Beolit 505 with missing antenne knob, Square4 (Henrik) reacted immediately and offered me 3 push buttons and a knob, shipped it to my son with Danpost, It never arrived, after waiting 3 weeks we gave up, lost forever.

I now ordered from Martin, all caps and other components needed, and from Frede (Classic) new fronts.

Frede is 300 Km from copenhagen so he had to ship these to my son, crossed fingers and hoped the best, they arriced without problems in 2 days. He even included a full set of push buttons and extra lamps for free. 

As Martin and my son are in Copenhagen I forced them to meet and deliver by hand, no chance of loosing anything, Martin did this as always free of charge.

My son was now loaded with Fronts, spares from Martin, a Beolit 505 and a preamp for a BG 1000, a gift from Tamtapir, Sweden (***).

Beginning of September my son packed it all in his suitcase, except for the Beolit 505, that one went into his backpack. As he went over Los Angeles and visited a friend there, he had to check in through immigration there, no problems, after one week there he left for Mexico, we picked him up in the airport, he took a long time to clear immigration and baggage pick up, and came out without suitcase, according to Aero Mexico it was left in LA and they would deliver next day. I ran a couple of circles in the airport, cooled down and thought for myself "at least the Beolit 505 is safe".

The suitcase arrived as promised next day, meanwhile I had bitten all my nails down to nearly nothing.

My son stayed here for 2 weeks and went back over LA again, in his suitcase the old fronts that Frede has to get back for reconstruction, they are invaluable no new ones are made, My sons flight from LA to Copenhagen was cancelled and he had to stay over 24 hours, but the suitcase was safe with him. Next day he went off for Copenhagen, Flight on time and all well. Arriving in Copenhagen, you wont believe it, NO SUITCASE, It took 3 days before it arrived, My confidence in airlines and postal services are now down to "0".

I have now had some days to recover, but my drive to do nearly anything, except for the daily chores are down to nothing. I dont want to experience this again, Future purchases overseas will be hand to hand delivery, and in on board baggage on the flights.

I now has my parts, Frede has the fronts back (if not they will arrive shortly) and maybe I will start on the BL/BM 5000 again today. 

Air travel, if the airlines don't lose it, our corrupt TSA inspectors will probably steal it.

Sounds like a nightmare! I hope everything turns up in the right place eventually.

I was nervous when I sent my Beolab 5000 to Frede by UPS - I would have driven it from the UK to Denmark myself if it wasn't a 2000km drive!

Mexico: Beolab 5000 Awaits Repair