Hi, I am getting a Takamine EG240 from the US. Check out the link for the description. I played through it recently and it sounds amazing. https://www.zzounds.com/item--TAKEG240/view--Natural My friend is in the US and will be hand carrying it from there in another month. Will he have to pay any duties when he is bringing it along. Maybe I can get someone to declare it as a gift. In that case what is the procedure. If somebody has done this already, please help me out.
It's really good. The Low end ovations suck. I got really disappointed when I played a few of them. If I strum the chord hard when plugged in, it started distorting. This one is really lush sounding. Anyway. Any ideas about the import stuffs.
ronnie,low-end takamines have a tendency to have intonation/action problems here in india and i speak through first hand info as 2 of my close friends had bought brand new pieces,one was ordered from UK and the other from US.They sounded beautiful for the first few months but then the action gave way n they are now lying like junk..........this could be sheer coincedence or whatever,but pls be cautious or you cud wait longer and go in for a high end piece.i also suggest u to go in for https://www.music123.com/Dampit-Guitar-Humidifier-i22468.music Btw i was in B'glore for 2 days,tried getting in touch with u thru messenger but got no response.excellent sound,professional ppl to work with..love the tech savvy ppl there.do stay in touch
if ur friend is carrying it tell him to say its for his personal use if they ask questrions... they normally dont though - my 70 yr old grandmom carried my electric through customs without any sort of problems : hell probably get it through without any problems though... dont worry too much...
btw which one are u getting- transparent red or natural - i somehow rpefer the antrual finsi hto the stained finish...
@Soulscape. I remembered that you'd be here as you had told me earlier. I was down with Typhoid, so I was on leave for 2 weeks and didn't log into this Messenger. Hope you have one more gig in Bangalore. If Takamines are gonna be a big problem, then what do you suggest. I need an acoustic. Can spend upto 15K for it.
They don't bother about guitars in customs. Recently I got a JS100 for myself in a hardcase (quite visible on the trolley!). Nobody asked any question!
^ ummm ... in that case can i bring in dope from outside? ... i thikn the customs dude will have some issues with that ...
Hi ronnie, I think the Takamine is a good bet, and with the decent weather in Bangalore warping etc should not happen. Your friend can carry in anything upto USD 500, no limit on the number of things he is carrying. normally the customs guys overlook guitars, I carried in 2 from the uk and no problems. Just ask him to remove all new looking stickers etc from the case though, and if asked, he should say its his personal one and he has been using it (you can't tell a new guitar from a used one). Worst case scenario is if the total of the goods deemed as new purchases goes over USD 500, he will be slapped with 40% as duty on the amount over 500, but I put the chances of that happening at 1%. Hope he is not carrying too many elctronics or other stuff though. also, My friend got in a camcorder by paying 1000 bucks to the customs guys, so thats another avenue. Overall, you can safely assume nothing will happen.
Ronnie - No duty man. I arrived last night with an Ibanez S470DX for fictional_reality and also a Digitech GNX1...no problems with duty. Just have your friend say its a personal guitar...they don't even ask man!
but in most ofda movies they show ppl caryying guns and dope in their guitar case ... so wont the customs ppl bother to check?
