I have been tracking with interest the travel of my Low D Copeland by way of UPS from Song of the Sea. My rough calulation of the speed is about 16 MPH. I have never seen a UPS truck going that slow on the road or parking lot, lol. I am not complaining just observing. This is the first time I have bought a whistle with shipping by UPS and the online tracking is great. It tells me where it has been and the arrival date and that it is on time. Years ago when something was shipped and you asked about it the standard answer was ''we sent it to you two weeks ago should be here any day now. When it is here I will most likely play the first two tunes I played years ago on my first Waltons whistle. Amazing Grace and Sweet Besty from Pike.
I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted with UPS ground. Usually, USPS priority mail is cheaper and much, much faster (and they deliver on Saturday for free).
Eric
There’s two songs I play when I get a new whistle also.
- The Lewis Bridal Song
- Don Oiche Ud i mBeithil
I guess it’s out of habit and because I’ve played them both a gazillion times. They’r both from Bill Och’s Clarke Tin Whistle Tutor book - my first whistle instruction. 
Good luck with the new whistle.
I got my Copelands several years ago from the House of Musical Traditions, (if I remember right). This was back when they were the exclusive distributors for Copeland and the wait list was about 14 months! (it took longer to get my whistles than a full set of u-pipes by Bruce Childress! ha)
My nickel high d arrived several weeks before the Low D. The packaging was a little tattered when it got to me… a brown cardboard box stuffed with newspaper with a space for the whistle rolled in about 5 ft of bubble wrap. So, ok.
When the Low D arrived, I was really in a state of shock. Being longer, they packed it in a tube container with bubble wrap around the whistle. The tube was bent at about a 35-40 degree angle. Special thanks to the monkey-boys in the brown uniforms that day. I thought for sure my Low D was gonna be more of a pretzel than a whistle from what I was holding in my hands. Opened it up and the bubble wrap had been popped all the way down to the whistle at the bend in the tube, but the whistle was unharmed. whew.
That same year I received a new CPU to replace an old computer, It had been handled so badly that the side pannel with all the connectors was totally bashed in. Luckily all the ports were connected via ribbon cable and not cards other wise I would have had to send it back for a rebuild.
I routinely refuse shipment via UPS if at all possible. The same level of service without the damage is available for less through the USPS.
“Big brown” sucks. If they spent a tenth of the money and energy they spend on advertising on improving their service they wouldn’t need nearly as much (false, in my opinion) advertising.
The tracking isn’t that great, either. The last thing I had shipped from California made it to Phoenix in about 24 hours. Then it showed sitting in the Phoenix warehouse until six days later, when it was shown received in Ft. Worth. I guess it teleported there because it never went on a truck in Phoenix…
After it was received in Ft. Worth it took them two days to deliver it to me at work (in Ft. Worth).
I used to have a job where we had to ship very expensive audio/video equipment all over the country. We forbid any of our remote sites to use UPS to send in equipment after receiving a $5,000 projector in pieces. UPS refused to honor the insurance because it “wasn’t packed in a factory container” (the factory boxes were crap - meant only to protect equipment when it was pallatized with a dozen other units - our packaging was much better) and in spite of the fact that there were tiremarks from a dual tire quite clearly imprinted on the crushed area of the packaging.
I can think of something else that is brown!
Obviously this shipper must be providing good enough service for some. I recently discovered that Elderly Instruments (who I consider a music retailer of very high quality, given their size) uses them routinely. For that reason I did not purchase the valuable instrument I was going to buy from them.
Maybe if you have a very large account with this shipper they are more likely to pay out when insurance claims come up.
As I see it, a problem (whether due to an accident or to negligence) could happen with any shipper. The reason I now make every effort to avoid doing business with the local branch of the shipper in question is because the local personnel, including the branch management, did a VERY poor job of accepting responsibility for, and compensating me for, their poor performance.
Paul
YIKES! Atleast you’re not in the Philly area where they’re talking about going “on strike” for the ten-thousandeth time. That might just slow it up a little more.
The only other logical explaination that I can think of is: with the price of gasoline these days, maybe UPS (also pronounced oops) has gone to bicycle couriers?
I friggen’ hate UPS (the business) for personal deliveries. they are designed for business to business.
EB White, author of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, was also a columnist and essayist. He lived in Maine for many years, and at some point found that all mail going from one town to another went through some city (probably Augusta, Portland, or Bangor, I can’t remember which). Of course, this seems logical these days, with hub airports and all that, but 50 years or so ago it wasn’t. So he did a series of articles in (I think) Yankee magazine on how one can get from one town to another faster than the mail can. I remember my father talking about reading one in which EB had a guy start out walking backwards at the time he mailed a letter. He walked backward from, say, Brunswick to Bath in less time than it took the letter to go on its circuitous route via truck.
At the last tracking it was in Houston Texas at 1:30 am on Saturday morning,and it should be here Monday. About thirty miles from my house. O well, that is faster than if I went to Maine to get it myself.
It is 2 am Monday here and the tracking says the whistle is still in Houston.
The driver is going to need to pick it up real soon to maintain the 16 mph.
Then to maintain 16 mph average he or she will need to drive by my house at 76 mph and throw it out at the house. Maybe that explains the torn boxes.
I hope he honks first so I can duck down. If it is thrown out at 76 mph at about 6 feet above the ground, How far will it go parallel to the truck before it makes the first bounce?
It left Houston at 3:45 this morning and should be here today. I know the driver on this route, and I have always had good luck with UPS.
Lastest scan was in La Marque at 6:35 am, within 15 miles now.
Assuming it’s thrown parallel to the ground, it will travel about 27 m (71.5 ft) in the direction of the truck’s motion before striking the ground. That’s neglecting air resistance, which would be considerable if it’s well packed.
Yes, they do… and not always with satisfactory results.
I had to return my new guitar case because it had the top collapsed. The box didn’t look too bad, except for the three size 13 work-boot type prints embossed on the top, exactly where the damabe was. Needless to say, I upgraded the quality of the case as well.
Let me add, in defense of those who do try to be careful, that I know our UPS delivery gal well… have for a long time. She is careful, but the company policies make it difficult. The deadlines are ridiculous, the time frames small, the leeway non-existant. They don’t double park and hog the lanes because they are jerks, they do it because it is the only way they can get in and out fast enough. I imagine that the same holds true for the handling of packages in shippment, not just delivery. That said, the ammount of damage and obviously reckless handling in our UPS packages is much higher than other carriers.
I have not once been let down by the USPS.
Twenty years or so ago I read a story about a similar situation. There were two small towns about five miles apart and mail from each went to a hub a couple of hundred miles away to be sorted. Typical time to mail a letter from one town to the other was four days, and that was if it didn’t span a weekend. Some retired guy who road his bicycle between the two towns for exercise every day started carrying letters for the locals. The USPS sued him for competing with first class mail!
I do family research and I find it very interesting that the typical time for a first class letter to travel from a small town near Springfield, MO, to the War Dept. Pension Office in Washington DC was three to four days in the late 19th century (postmarked in Willard, for example, on the 12th and stamped received by the pension office on the 15th or 16th). That was in steam locomotive and horse and wagon days. It routinely takes 1st class postage five to seven days to make the same trip today!
It arrived Monday afternoon and it sounds fantastic.