Bulk shipment deal thoughts

[logan]

I cant see the images here at work (flickr.com is blocked...) but could you save me the "Ms.Pac Man"
I will check the pics this evening!

[Superully]

@steve: one of the sitdown cabinets (picture 385) looks like "pole position 2" sitdown version to me. am i right? if that's the case, i'd be interested in that, along with millipede and centipede (there are two, i'd prefer the one on the right)
picture 360 is tempest, right? too bad we don't see this game upfront. but if it looks ok, I'd take the tempest cab!!! those are so hard to come-by in germany!
omega race also seems to be very nice, along with battlezone, star trek and gorf - so i'd raise my hand for those, too!

@logan: there seem to be two ms pac-man cabinets: one in pretty rough state (in blue) with a missing control panel and one in pac-man yellow (its condition is hard to determine).

did i miss the pictures of gyruss, frogger and q*bert (which i'd be REALLY interested in)?

[logan]

Thx Superbully.  As soon as I'm home I will have a look at the pic, till then: "Save me both please!" 
Superbully do you want to have the Frogger? I would be interessted in that one too... 

[Superully]

@logan: you have a pm - and it's Superully, not Superbully 

[petieken]

If that Guerrilla War cab is for sale I'd be interested in that one. The Simpsons cab has my interest too.

[logan]

If that Guerrilla War cab is for sale I'd be interested in that one. The Simpsons cab has my interest too.

There's a Simpsons Cab?? Arg... and I cant see the pics... 

[Superully]

@steve: you don't happen to have a Williams' Moon Patrol in your collection you might let go?

[DarthNuno]

Thanks for the pictures Steve 

OK, now before choosing the games, here's the questions to ask us first :

There is of course the price of each cab but add :

- The price of the shipping cost?
- The incoming taxes?
- Other 'unknow' fees (other taxes because outgoing the US?, and when incoming in Europe?)?
- Car rental price when the container will arrive
- Which town for the container to come ?
- A local to keep the game before the dispatching of the games to the buyers ?
...

The less people involved in this would be the best -> quick reactivity / easy to share money / logistic. At least for the first phase !

... but the organization of this will be a really adventure (who says a 'nightmare') and must be lead by someone really motivate for this, having a lot of free time, flexibility, ...

I cannot be that 'main' person : not *enough* free time for this, sorry, and I don't plan to get a lot of cab anyway (sure, there are a lot of great games here, but my 'must have' list is almost complete ...except a Q*Bert and a Burger Time  ....

So if someone *really* want the cabs, is *really* motivate and has good skill for logistic... it's up to him now

But here's the first questions to answers IMO :

1) What is the size of a container ? How many games can we put in a container ? Maybe it's possible to use an half of a container ? It would reduce the number of games to buy ?

2) Which country/town to choose for shipping a container ? If a big collector plan to take a lot of games, I would say 'the nearest' from this guy!

3) What is the price for shipping a container (or an half of a container) ?

4) What is the outgoing taxes to pay when a container leaves the US ?

5) What is the incoming taxes to pay when a container arrive in the destination country ?

6) Is there other fee regarding the taxes at this point ?

I suggest to answer at these questions first... a lot of other questions to come of course 


Once again, thanks to you Steve for your patience on this. As you see, it looks like a BIG thing to do from here 

[funkycochise]

My thoughts.

Definitely, this is not remote puchase nor ebay 'Buy it now' kind of stuff here.
As I discussed with Bruno, we all loved to touch and buy steve's items.
Find the final owner of this cab or this cab is not the actual question.
We all know what is rare out there in Europe.
All these make us dream. I think none of these cab would stay without owner here.

The question is : How to make these things come here in europe ?

What you have to ask, who is able to risk, let's say, 1000 €, as initial fund, without knowing what he will
get in final.

If the import is not taken as a business, it will not be realized.
That said it could only be limited to a few numbers of 'investors'
And as there are lots of money involved, there should be moral contract.
Even there, I don't know if it's possible without tensions.

Supposition : Let the import be. Once the cabs there, investors would have to fix a price for each
cab (including all fees involved). The sellings of the cabs to investors and additional people could then begin.
Once this made, you refund the investors for their initial fund (minus their buying of course)

It's the only way to make this happen.

And this is only the financial aspect.
Think about all the logistic, shipping, laws an tax...

This project is highly risky and final price of the cabs could become HUGE.

This is not a project about getting interesting cabs for our hobby,
rather a nightmare as Bruno said, with lots of time and money to invest,
without garanty that it's worth the investment.
In fact make these thing achieved is close to a real job.

So, any other "I want pacman-qbert-centipede-galaga-whatyouwant seen in  picture 23" comments ?

[steve23]

   OK, well, in my original post I said" Is there any collector who'd be interested AND could handle dealing with a container of games, then distributing or reselling as they chose? Or maybe a group of collectors getting together for a bulk deal?" The responses seemed affirmative. So, I prepared the photos, assuming maybe others had given this what ever consideration would be necessary for it to happen. Frankly, I'm not up to the task of investigating international taxes or laws etc. Getting a shipping quote for anyone wouldn't be all so difficult. Simply need to tell a freight forwarder it is coming Folkston,Georgia USA 31537 to where ever is good for you. And get a 20 foot and a 40 foot container quoted. Weight in the case doesn't matter.

   As a side note, I have an arcade at home which has 35-40 games in it. The photos are from my factory where I have spare storage space. Very nice to have 15,000 SQ FT of room for ones games;). I do have a some very, very nice classics I might sell separately if a container is coming. Yes, the Moon Patrol I have could let go of. Really not much of a fan of it. I alos have a really, really nice dedicated 4 player Trog, a D.O.T. UR, Tron CT, few others I'm thinking about let go of. I really need a bigger arcade at home. Shipping individual games is just crazy expensive any more. Well, let's see if this comes together. If you think it can, it can!

[logan]

Hi guys,

well, now that I've seen the pics I'm out.
Those 2 Pac-man (the only cabs I was really interested in) are in such a bad condition it's not worth all the effort & costs. I think it's easier to finde something in better or the same condition here.

Sorry if I gave you anny false impression...

Thanks again

Logan

[vib_ribbon]

Bruno,

I've done quite a few container orders from Japan before into UK, so I have some experience. Whether or not they are completely different to US to Mainland Europe, I don't know.

However, in terms of getting the price quote from US to Europe, Steve should arrange for you with his freight forwarder. His freight forwarder will give him a list of possible ports of call and dates with the vessels that they deal with, so it's a matter of choosing the nearest seaport to you, or the most convenient one with regards to dates etc. With our orders, even though our designated man (Mr Megalo) is in north England, the port that we opted for, the one that was available to us was Southampton which is on the south coast (approx 300 miles?). Non of the ships from Japan come to our northern seaports eg, Liverpool. But road transport for a few hundred miles is not too bad.

Anyway, other information such as size of container/ gross weight/ total value of cabs declared will also been needed for you to approach your own freight forwarder here in Europe. It would be best if you don't look at the costs from a complete breakdown, that would just cause headaches (eg: Customs clearance, terminal handling fee, docs fee, Deferment facility fee, Customs examination fee, Security fee, Agency & attendance, Postage & Petties...the list just goes on and on). You basically need to look at it as these 3 things, 1/ Cost to Freight Forwarder to sort out all the crap for you on its arrival, 2/ TAX, 3/ Road transport to get the container to your warehouse.

1 - shouldn't be very much, this is just the freight guys handling some paperwork and to pay customs on your behalf. A few hundred euros.
2 - TAX in UK is based on Cost & Freight. Cost = the declared value of the contents, Freight is the cost to send from US to Europe (it sounds crazy but it's true) Obviously you can get Steve to say the cabs are worth nothing, but if they get mashed on their way here then Steve's freight forwarder will compensate you nothing. That is the risk. So for UK now, VAT = 15% x ( Cost of cabs + Cost of Freight from US to Europe. )
3 - Your freight forwarder will tell you now much.

...but like you say, it's time investment also on liaising with the freight forwarder, going to the bank and sending money, having warehouse rented, arranging to be there when the lorry arrives, having enough friends to help out to unload, making sure everything works, being there for when people come to collect, what happens when things go wrong etc...

it's great when it runs smoothly, but a lot worse than a kick in the balls when you have taken people's money, and cabs turn up broken. Hope that answers some of your questions.

[DarthNuno]

Thanks you vib_ribbon for sharing your experience 
Yes, it's really helpful 

This deal would be a nice opportunity for guys to start a nice game collection from scratch, because of the amount of games available from Steve.
For other collectors like me, because I'm just looking for one or two 'must have' games in that list, it would be too much efforts for only few games