The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    I have generally done well with overseas purchases. Recently there have been a few glitches. For the record, I'm in Michigan.

    Long ago I got a Heritage from Singapore. I still have it and it's a beauty. The surprise was that I could not get it without paying a duty despite the guitar being built just a few miles from my home. This was close to $120. The USPS did release it to me after paying and gave me the paperwork to apply for a refund. That was time wasted. I never heard anything back despite sending letters and leaving messages. After a year I gave up hope. That was more than a decade ago.

    More recently I got another Heritage from a dealer in Singapore. The binding needed repair and this was not disclosed in the listing. The dealer offered to do a partial refund or take it back with him covering shipping. I opted for the former and am glad I did.

    A couple of weeks ago I got a Heritage guitar from a German dealer. It got hung up in customs about a week in Kentucky, which is not the worst. It arrived in a hard shell case with some thin plastic wrapped around the case. I was pleased the guitar wasn't harmed. A week later I received a bill from UPS to cover an import duty of $123 dollars. I called the UPS rep, who was quite nice actually. She said that there should not be an import duty since the sender clearly stated the guitar was built in America. She wondered if the duty was because of the value of the guitar. I told her I didn't think so because the amount of the "duty" was exactly what the import tariff would be. Anyway, she counseled me on how to craft an email to have UPS investigate. I did this, UPS promptly responded to not pay them anything until the appeal is complete, which should be about five months.

    These are not catastrophes that I note. These instead are the annoyances that plague modernity. It's death by a thousand cuts.

    I often wonder why I didn't just keep my 1966 Firebird V that came with an amp for $125. Sure, my guitar teacher had a Gibson Johnny Smith and taught me jazz. It's taken me decades to learn that you CAN play jazz on a Firebird. Of course I would have missed out on all the fun and excitement of buying and selling guitars.

    Buying a guitar from far away-firebird-playing-jpg

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  3. #2

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    You don't know how lucky you are. If I lived in a country that had exported products all over the world, I would welcome regulations that allowed duty-free repatriation. Not long ago, I saw a Gibson L-5 for sale in Dunedin at an attractive price. Unfortunately, it disappeared before I could tell this forum about it, but the duty waiver would have made it very affordable to American friends.

  4. #3

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    That picture is iconic! A kid with his guitar, practicing on his bed surrounded by a transistor radio, a record player, and sheet music, is an historic portrait of me and many others who are reading this now. All that’s missing is the flashlight I used so I could do it when my parents thought I was already asleep