How on earth did you discover a fastener shop would ship a pallet? Very out of the box thinking!

I shipped a pin from FL to Washington state for $150 using Fastenal about a year ago. It got there quickly (less than a week) if I recall

I should have used Fastenal when I shipped a game through NAVL/STI a few years ago. It would have saved me a ton of headaches...., not to mention the game.

John

Fascinating. That's an interesting discovery.

They just ship from store location to store location, correct?

I might be a little nervous about shipping without insurance, though.

This. If the game's valuable enough to ship, $200 in savings wouldn't be worth the sleepless nights waiting to see if it got through in one piece uninsured. That said, a good option for project games or other situations where shipping wouldn't otherwise be economical.

Games shipped through Fastenol are not insured in any way. I would not buy or sell a game in a transaction with zero insurance.

Trying to save $200 doesn't seem worth it if you paid $4,000 for the game.

But like fosaisu said, if you buy a project game, this could be a good economical alternative to the other expensive shippers. Plus there are some daredevils out there, maybe they wouldn't mind taking the risk.

Don't mean to be snarky, but I find that wrapping would not protect against dropped games or some asshole plowing through the side of your game with a forklift (and getting away with it)

I wouldn't sell a game to someone that insisted on using Fastenal. I want the people to get the game in 1 piece and be happy with it, the last thing I need is a mess.

What if it's already in two pieces?

My new favorite pinball joke...

I got all excited when I saw this post. A shipper that will ship a palletized pinball machine without a crate! And with a very reasonable shipping rate. I needed to ship a project machine from the St Louis area, so this was perfect. Today, I immediately submitted a shipping quote request at the Fastenal Web site. Customer service emailed me a few hours later and said, "All pinball and arcade games MUST be shipped using a shipping crate." They also said they DO NOT provide any palletizing services for pinball or arcade games, even though their Web site shows they offer palletizing services... Another disappointment in the pinball shipping saga...

I have a theory that it's actually shipping costs that are driving up the price of pinballs - nothing to do with new/dumb/desperate people- everyone wants to "break even" on a game so you may buy a game for $2K spend $3-500 shipping and BOOM now you want $23-2500 for your game when you sell it.

Check out uship.com I moved a game from KY to GA for <$250 including uship's fees. Seller was able to prep for shipment but based on how I've seen STI ship games I'm sure you could give 1-2 sentences of instructions in a uship description and do the same. "Put 1 blanket between the backbox and glass." "Wrap the game in moving blankets, now wrap the game in Saran Wrap, leave the legs on and bring it to me." BOOM that's how STI does it.

My game got delivered less than 16 hours after pickup - STI took over 2 weeks @ almost twice the price.

Would I use either service to deliver a $15K HEP pin - NO! But to ship a $2-3K players grade pin - sure. Do some research on the shipper and get a copy of their insurance policy before shipping then call and verify coverage.

I have used Fastenal in the past..

Lately though all the long distance deals I have tried to do didn't pan out because the seller didn't want to hassle with standing the game up on a pallet and wrapping it. Even though the ads said "willing to ship." I guess their definition of that and mine are way out of whack.

I usually take "willing to ship" to mean you make all arrangements and they'll be there to let STI in on pickup day. Palleting a game is extra work and I get why most won't do it if they don't have to and some won't do it at all. Of course it never hurts to ask!

Yeah I get that...

But the problem is that STI shipping costs are just too damn high. Usually kills most deals.. Fastenal is a good alternative *if* they will take the freight and *if* the seller will pallet.

Occasionally Fastenal has moratoriums on certain routes. I wanted to ship a game from east to west and was told that there weren't taking any freight for those routes due to no spare capacity on their trucks.

Consider buying insurance separately from an insurance company. I'm not in the US, but I can get insurance quotes from both the freight company and an insurance broker when shipping pins.