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Pristine Audio has always operated using the postal service - as a UK company about 98% of our business arrived via the Post Office, either as 1st class mail, parcel post or Special Delivery. We also received a large amount of international work posted in the same way from Europe, North America and Australia. During this time we suffered no losses and no breakages. Since our move to France we have been highly impressed with the French postal service. With one or two exceptions the average time for small packet airmail packages to arrive has been 2-3 days. For particularly valuable items we do recommend the Post Office's Airsure service, which is roughly equivilent to Special Delivery - a signed for service that's fully insured. That said, standard Airmail can prove equally swift and reliable. We also recommend printing our address rather than using a handwritten envelope - this speeds the sorting process.
Clearly posting from within Metropolitan France should pose no difficulties. Residents of other countries should use their standard airmail service or international courier services, with users of the latter noting the comments above.
You will see from our address that there is no street name or building number - this is typical of small French villages where the postman is expected to know everyone by name. Clearly this is a possible handicap to international courier delivery firms, and we would recommend adding the following comments either in the delivery notes or as part of the address (not required for regular airmail): "Rte. de Villefranche, en face de l'église. Tel. 05 53 82 18 57"
Lightness and protection are the order of the day here. An innovative solution to posting 12" records where no tailor-made packaging is available is to obtain a suitably-sized pizza box, wrap the record(s) in bubble wrap and place inside the box. Parcel paper around the outside puts the finishing touches to this method, which can be adapted for other records, including 78s. For 78s see also the section here. Tapes are extremely robust and will not suffer any damage or loss of quality through x-ray machines at customs. Please don't hesitate to call or e-mail if you have any further queries on this matter.
We've never suffered from having LPs, 78s or tapes lost or broken in the post, but do use your common sense with regard to packaging and method of posting - I'm happy to offer advice on packaging. I aim to return original material recycling the same packaging and by the same method of posting wherever possible and desired. General information on posting is available here.
Finished CDs are sent out in padded envelopes by standard mail or airmail. A back-up copy of each disc is kept as security.
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