Shipping a Sportster Frame to the UK
When I listed this old Sportster frame on eBay, my listing clearly stated, shipping to the lower 48 only. I have sold five or six motorcycle frames in the past with no problems, so this should be a piece of cake. 
I picked up this Sportster frame on a springtime craigslist deal. One thing I have found out when you sell certain items on eBay, you tend to find out, that you don’t know what you may think you know about squat.
My headline for the frame went like this;
OEM 1952-1967 Stock Sportster Frame Complete.
Then I went on with;
Nice untouched stock sporty frame, 1967.
Will work for some other year sporty engines.
You get everything in the picture, except the ammo box and the grass.
This frame has never been wrecked.
All mounts and tabs are intact.
Has the kickstand, struts, swingarm, shocks, everything is there.
It will be broken down for shipment.
Casting numbers under seat plate 47657-67
I will not ship this outside the lower 48, so don’t ask
This is a very clean frame.
Double check with me on shipping costs.
I found out rather quickly in 67 Harley changed the Sportster XLH frame to accept the starter motor. So what I had was a 1967 first year electric starter frame. I had quite a few questions about the casting numbers located on different areas of the frame. These casting numbers can tell you a lot about the manufacturing of the frame, if you can decode them.
I started the bidding at $200.00, on the third day some guy jumped on the $200. It stayed that way until the last day (7 day auction), and I get an email from a guy in the UK. He asks if I would let him bid, that he has an agent in the US that will handle the overseas shipping. I told him sure, that I would ship to the lower 48. Then the bidding went a little crazy at the last minuets, with the guy from the UK winning the auction with a bid of $356.66. This guy then drops an email, telling me to figure high shipping to LA and he will pay the total via PayPal, his agent was out for the weekend. I figured high, sent him the total, and he paid, fast.
The next morning another email, the guy wants to know if I would be willing to handle the shipping to the UK,(I am a nice guy) he gave me a business address, and I called my shipper. After a good laugh with my shipper and a total cost of $554 for shipping the guy paid in full.
Below are the pic’s as I boxed the frame with the swingarm, shocks, and struts in the middle box.
Packed up and ready, I dropped this off to my shipper at 1:30pm on a Monday It arrived on the guys dock in the UK on Thursday. You can’t even ship to the lower 48 that fast, amazing.
Ride and Ship Safe….
You know. I read every word and I still can’t figure out as to why I found this so frick’in interesting dude. LOL! Thanks for sharing the experience. Now all you have to do is describe how to decode the numbers on the frame. That would be of interest to me. Sounds like the dude really had to have this treasure. I wonder what the end result will be? Now I wanna see what this guy is gonna do with it….beyond the obvious of course.
Comment by FLHX_Dave — July 24, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
Dear Electra Glide In Blue:
I read this expecting to find some horror story in which the frame was bent in half during shipping, or that the purchaser also asked you to include five (5-pound) brown paper bags from Columbia, or that it turns out the guy in the UK was the leader of the Russian mob and there are four guys named Sergei now sitting outside your house, smoking clove cigarettes in a van.
Then I thought you were going to into the coding for the casting numbers, which could have indicated that the frame was made on the first Monday, following the New Year’s Day holiday, by a guy named “Irv,” who was actually the plant accountant and didn’t know shit about foundry work, and who was filling in for Mikey, who was standing in a police line-up, for having shot his mother-in-law 700 times to make sure she understood exactly what “shut the hell up” really meant.
Yet it appears you were really writing a testimonial to UPS or FedEx. Still, it should be noted that I couldn’t turn away from this simple story. I’m having it tested to see if it carried subliminal porn. Please forgive my absence from all blogs for a while. I wasn’t myself. (I was a fan dancer in the Follies Bergier.)
Fondest regards,
Jack “reep” Toad
Twisted Roads
Comment by Jack Riepe — July 28, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
Dear Jack,
Only you would pick up on the subliminal porn message, gez I need to work on my writhing skills. To decode this post you will need to print a copy and hold it up to a mirror, as always thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment that rocks the house.
Comment by Electra Glide In Blue — July 30, 2009 @ 6:54 pm