Moving My Collection

mauihiu

mauihiu

Member
Fellow Forum Members,
Looking for your some advice.
I wil be moving from Europe to Hawaii this Summer and am contemplating how to move my collection. While I am quite allright packing away steel helmets, field gear etc for the movers to take care of, my pickelhaubes are another matter. I am not so sure I am willing to entrust my helmets to them unless I pack them myself and hide them within other boxes. A real concern is that my belongings will be repacked and my helmets will "disappear" during repackinging, something that happens way too often in military moves. I could also ship it via mail to Hawaii or to to the homestead and let my Dad enjoy it for the next three years.

Another concern is taking the collection to the climate in Hawaii. I do think I will be moving into a climate controlled house and can always get a humidifier/de-humnidifier as necessary.

Any suggestion or advice is much appreciated. :D
 
Hi, Eric--
Good luck with the move. I guess you have a few things to consider.

1) How many helmets are you talking about? A dozen, a hundred, etc.? You are in the military I assume, so perhaps you should mail the helmets. Can you wrap the helmets in bubble wrap first or does the military need to see everything?

2) Climate is always a concern, but A/C is usually fine as it doesn't suck all the humidity out of the air. Hawaii isn't as humid as Florida and not as dry as Arizona, so I don't think that should be a huge problem.

Good luck with the move. I know it can be stressful.
 
Some years ago a friend of mine
who at the time had one of the best
officers spiked helmet collection in the U S A
He was moving also
and checked all methods of shipping
He did NOT use the movers for his helmets
After checking I believe that he settled on
the safest way and the company with the
smallest percentages of loss.
I think that he packed them all himself
and shipped them to his new address
via Federal Express
Expensive ? I guess so
but so were his helmets
another way would be by registered mail
but in Germany can you insure your packages ?

Steve
 
Steve, I could actually use USPS since I am in the military. I would ship a couple at a time so if something did happen I don't lose everything, plus im not sure there is a box big enough to fit them all.
 
Eric

The problem too many of us have faced. I always used the Packers. I was very certain to take pictures and make sure my insurance was good to go. I would wrap the item and put it inside a box and then label the box so that it could be recorded as such on the inventory sheet. Sometimes things did not show up. Sometimes things were damaged. Sometimes no problem. However, I always got money. Pictures and the claims forms always worked for me.
 
Joe,

That is probably what I will end up doing, catalog, mark the stuff, and keep my fingers crossed! This is now my 19th military move and it seems like just when I have things figured out something new comes up and bites me!
 
Some good advice here. I thought about this a few years ago when my wife and I were contemplating a move to Germany. I was going to pack each helmet as I would shipping to a friend or if I sold it, so bubble wrapped, in a separate small box, bubble wrapped the smaller box inside of the shipping box, one or two at a time. I figured around $500 - $1000 to ship the collection via Air, while our possessions went via container. I would NOT recommend shipping via container as you can't regulate the heat if it's at the top of a stack or left in the sun for a long time.
Another advantage I have is being from a small town and our post office would take all of the boxes on the day before we departed, so we'd be home in Germany as the collection arrived.

:D Ron
 
You're welcome, but it's not my idea, I've received several helmet packed that way and it seems to work best. I should clear something up. I only ever put one smaller box inside of a larger box, but sometimes that smaller box contains two helmets (such as nested M15's or such with spikes removed and packed in separate wraps inside of the box. I also tagged all of my removed spikes just in case I brain-farted when matching them up with the helmet bodies.

:D Ron
 
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