anyone driving a van from NYC to Tucson?

[ellenkushner]

We have 2 glass-fronted antique barrister bookcases (62 x 34 x 12) that need to be driven from our apt. to friends in Tucson. I've listed the job with uShip, through whom we've had success in the past. But wide and diverse is the readership for LJ, so on the chance that someone is making the drive in the next few weeks, I thought I'd post here as well. Here are the details & photos on uShip - but of course, if you are able to help, please contact me directly here.

Comments

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

I'd drive them alright... from your place directly to mine}:P

For some reason, barrister bookcases are hard to find around here.}:(

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Really?! These are the unmatching twins of an unmatching pair that we sent down to friends to use/store in Tucson some years back - no one can remember now why we did not keep the pair that went together . . . lost in the mist of time and a certain amount of organizational panic that went into getting things out of Delia's old house when she moved in with me . . . Anyhow: we are thinking of selling one of the pairs, but that would involve moving one from Tucson and one from here to be reunited. It's all a bit much.

There are many fine barrister bookcases for sale online. I am, of course, trying to find the pair that most closely resembles ours, to see what they might be worth.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Yeah, apparently around here, very FEW furniture makers carry them. Even antiques are hard to find. Even rarer is finding someone who knows what I'm talking about.}:/

[catwithclaws.livejournal.com]

I have, oddly enough, had good luck w/ craigslist. In this case it was a fellow reporting to duty in Kentucky and along the way he took my bunny from CA to UT, then some dog from AZ to OK and a few other trips to help pay the gas bill.

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

I'm in agreement with some of your other posters. I love barristers, and find them hard to come by. Mine are modular and came from the folks at Levenger, and were snagged as a wedding gift (Valerie dominated most of the gift registry, but I held out for gift certificates to Levengers).

Any chance you'll post pics of the cases before shipping them off?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Photos - not very good ones, I'm afraid, as they're (a) in an awkward corner of the dining room where they are (b) filled with glasses & china which don't really fit in them and (c) were never put together properly by the movers when we moved in - are up on the uShip site.

Though at this point it is beginning to look like it will cost more to move them than is worth it to us, and that we may well simply sell them.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

If you have to send them, the most reliably cheapest way to send anything bulky is by Greyhound Express (http://www.shipgreyhound.com/). The packages go in the cargo compartment of a Greyhound bus, and it's terminal-to-terminal (i.e., they don't deliver it to your door). My cost, Philadelphia to Spokane, worked out to about a dollar a pound.

Some furniture can't be wrapped well, but since barristers are made to come apart, the levels can probably be arranged properly, and the glass doors well insulated with bubblewrap. If you're daunted by the wrapping job, I'd take one to a UPS Store or someplace similar and get a quote.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Bless you - I had forgotten that barristers can be taken apart and actually are best transported taht way. I'm such a wimp about physical space - but Delia's a demon wrapper, and I'm sure could work wonders with cardboard & bubblewrap.

Thank you so much for chiming in on all my Antiques questions - you make it all so much better! Is this just an amateur passion of yours, or what? How dId you gain so much practical knowledge?

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Antiques are my drug of choice. (Semi-seriously.) I feel about antiques the way some writers have said they feel about writing-- that it's home and hearth to them, the thing that always feeds them. (Reading, to me, is a close second.) The practical knowledge just comes, in much the same effect that some writers describe as "mulching." I'm sure you've encountered that kind of thing wearing one or all of your hats, professionally speaking.

The portability of barristers was brought home to me as a necessity when we moved into our current home fourteen months ago. It dates to the 1830s-- the largest antique I ever bought, I joke-- and has only winding stairs. Up which, only barristers will fit, one or two levels at a time.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I understand! Well, it's great to have you in my circle.

The new house sounds great - I love the idea of it as "the largest antique you ever bought" - so true! Delia was living in a huge Queen Anne Victorian when I met her - home of the barristers . . . too bad we didn't think to bring them with us when she moved into my house with the tiny stairs . . . (they are bulky, and don't hold as many books, so we put them in storage).

Are you at all interested in my 4-stack Globe-Wernicke? Currently lying in pieces in the livingroom (to make room for new cabinet), but I have photos. It's in perfect condition. I'm asking $1200, which is, as I understand it, top dollar in NYC, but would take a lower offer. Even if you're not interested, what do you think is reasonable?

[handworn.livejournal.com]

I am quite at your service for any questions about antiques you may have. I'm glad to know you, too. (You and Delia and vschanoes-- I sense I may have misspelled that-- remain the only LJers I have met in real life.)

$1200 is quite high for a barrister; it's a retail price, and as you say, a New York City retail price. For our two barristers, as I recall, I paid $300 and $400 respectively. The usual rule of thumb among dealers was $100 per level as a wholesale price, though of course that has risen some since I first learned it.

I don't think I can afford to make an offer anywhere close to what you were asking, but I have put several large antiques on consignment in antique stores I know, which solves the problem of where to keep them, puts the onus of shipping on someone else, and makes something closer to a retail price possible, even deducting the 20% or so the dealer would take. In your place, that's what I would do. Barristers (in fact, antique bookcases in general, for obvious reasons) are quite desireable, and dealers like to be able to offer a good piece and make money on it without having to tie up their own capital. (Have you given up on the idea of shipping them?)