A Weighty Issue - AP Postage Costs

[vince hughes]

A factor little addressed in the new 'wonder' counters era of AP is postage costs.

Alan Sawyer is oft tasked to purchase newer goods from AP for me and then send them across the Atlantic. Something he raised is quite a startling fact when it comes to postage.

Whilst sending Kursk to me, the weight of the package was 0.55 Kg. When it came to sending Lib 44, it weighed no less than 0.95 Kg. Almost twice as much ! I can only presume the Super-thick Steroid counters are the issue here

As you can imagine, this surely is going to add to AP's postage costs. Have they raised P&P for American buyers ?

Will cross post to AP CSW in another form.

*Edit* On second thoughts will not post as can not afford further cost rises myself :-)

[plloyd1010]

Interesting point Vince. I did a quick count of countersheets in my boxed games. Here is the breakdown.

Cassino: 5
RtB, KBT: 4
AK, DR: 3.5
EFD, ElBR, KSF, FoF: 3
BN: 2.5
Saipan, Lib'44, Guad: 2

There is an interesting curve which seems a little steep on the back. What I mean is only 2 countersheets in the 2 newest games, in contrast to an upward trend from the early games.

[tlangston28]

A factor little addressed in the new 'wonder' counters era of AP is postage costs.

Alan Sawyer is oft tasked to purchase newer goods from AP for me and then send them across the Atlantic. Something he raised is quite a startling fact when it comes to postage.

Whilst sending Kursk to me, the weight of the package was 0.55 Kg. When it came to sending Lib 44, it weighed no less than 0.95 Kg. Almost twice as much ! I can only presume the Super-thick Steroid counters are the issue here

As you can imagine, this surely is going to add to AP's postage costs. Have they raised P&P for American buyers ?

Will cross post to AP CSW in another form.

*Edit* On second thoughts will not post as can not afford further cost rises myself :-)

Vince - it will probably be less expensive for you to move to America!

[campsawyer]

Yes Peter, this is interesting but let me give some of the back story of Vinces post.

As he stated, I had been shipping this over to him and during my weighing of the full boxes of Liberation it tipped the scale at 0.9 kg. as I was sending over two copies plus the shipping box, this tipped the scales at over 2kgs. Shipping international 2kgs is the break point for when shipping increases. In this example to ship the 2+kgs boxes would have cost over $60, while shipping 2 1kg boxes was only $20 each for a total of $40.

So this got me thinking about shipping and as an experiment, I weighted an extra KSF game that I have. Putting this on the scales yielded only and weight of 0.55 kg's, which I was surprised about. Unfortunately, I cannot compare counter sheet weights directly as the some of KSF counters have been punched by the postal handlers in transit, but in comparison it is interesting.

But the bigger issue, is that for a couple of games sent to England it is cheaper to send individually than to bundle them together and depending on the game one might be slightly heavier that another.

[Matt W]

Purely anecdotally, I had noted that, as I put my Lib 44 pieces back into their ziplocs after play I could feel the pieces fall into the bag from the weight of them. This has not been the case with the other pieces, so I can easily see that the extra weight is in the counters.

[vince hughes]

Vince - it will probably be less expensive for you to move to America!


[/quote]

To be honest, it wasn't just the postage for myself I was worried about, but also, I didn't want to be the one seen as responsible for APL raising the postage in the US either. ...... Pariah !

[larry marak]

Keep in mine the "phoenix" counters are tripple thick and probably weigh 3 times standard..ie..2 liberation countersheets = 6 KSF countersheets.

[waynebaumber]

A factor little addressed in the new 'wonder' counters era of AP is postage costs.

Alan Sawyer is oft tasked to purchase newer goods from AP for me and then send them across the Atlantic. Something he raised is quite a startling fact when it comes to postage.

Whilst sending Kursk to me, the weight of the package was 0.55 Kg. When it came to sending Lib 44, it weighed no less than 0.95 Kg. Almost twice as much ! I can only presume the Super-thick Steroid counters are the issue here

As you can imagine, this surely is going to add to AP's postage costs. Have they raised P&P for American buyers ?

Will cross post to AP CSW in another form.

*Edit* On second thoughts will not post as can not afford further cost rises myself :-)

Vince - it will probably be less expensive for you to move to America!

A sort of lend lease in reverse can we have Cape Cod in exchange

[otto]

Two issues here:
I wonder if you chose, in shipping to Vince, the airmail option or the surface one.
Whilst APL gives no choice (only airmail permitted), other companies would let you do it. Now, I do not mind to add a further one month delay to the game arrival... because from the time you are charged it takes so long anyway. So I would definitely go for the surface.
Second issue is related to Customs.
As far as I know, there is a threshold below which you are not charged. A larger parcel could go above that threshold and ... gain more easily the attention.
Any thoughts/information to share?

Ottavio