I guess if I knew more about international trade, I'd understand why we don't pay import duties on anything coming in to the US. At least, I've never paid any on any CDs from Amazon UK or elsewhere.
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I guess if I knew more about international trade, I'd understand why we don't pay import duties on anything coming in to the US. At least, I've never paid any on any CDs from Amazon UK or elsewhere.
As far as I am aware items imported from non EU countries with a value of £18 or more attract import duty. I've avoided paying this in the past by placing separate orders if the items are under £18. On one occasion where I had done this & duty was charged as they were shipped as one package, I wrote to the company concerned & they refunded the charges. At the same time two other packages were delivered which I expected to pay duty on, so go figure it, but I wasn't complaining.
@ tbfxt
For items that come from non-EU countries, you pay standard VAT [[20%) on goods with a value that exceeds £15. The VAT is applied to the total value including the postage charge.
Royal Mail also charges a "handling fee" for collecting the VAT. I've always been charged £5 for this. If you paid £8, perhaps this fee is not standard? But even £5 is ridiculous…
There is no customs duty on items with value less than £135. At or above that, you'll be charged customs duty at a rate which depends on the item, provided that the duty comes to at least £9. For cds, the rate is 3.5%. That means you need a value of a bit more than £257 to reach the £9 threshold charge. [[Still, I'd break an order up to avoid exceeding £135 - I'd be afraid they'd charge me by mistake, and perhaps at a rate which is too high… and good luck trying to get anything back.)
https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty
https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff/commodities/8523493900
In practice, I've usually not been charged on single cds even when the value was above £15, including on orders from Japan. But I've placed a few bigger multi-cd orders with HMV Japan and I had to pay VAT on every one of those.
As Mr Soul writes, you could try to break the orders into smaller, separate orders. I've done this as well - a few months ago musicjapan had two cds I wanted on Amazon marketplace, so I ordered one, waited a day or two and then ordered the other, just to be sure they'd be sent seperately. It was not only about saving the VAT, but saving myself the hassle of having my cds held at the post until I paid the VAT. But with HMV Japan and some other sellers, you should also consider that breaking an order up might increase the postage cost [[not the case with Amazon marketplace).
That "Best of The Fantastic Four" cd linked above is offered by musicjapan for £6.26 + £1.26 postage, less than £15 so there should be no charges.
John,
Import charges are very random [[and when you do get caught, as you say, you have to pay the Royal Mail handling fee as acting as your agent!) but a rule of thumb is if your total order totals £18 plus then it might well get picked up for the import charge [[i.e. the VAT) but if you keep your order under £18 it will just get passed with no import charge. So, if you are ordering several items, do separate orders for each individual item as this might well work [[on the assumption the individual item is leas than £18).
Ivor
Available for pre-order on Amazon but has to come down in price?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Motown-...ur+lost+motown
I have yet to see a pre-order price not come down, and in the case of the many Motown CD's I've pre-ordered with Amazon by a considerable amount. I always pre-order mine and because of Amazon's pre-order price guarantee have landed some real bargains in the past when the price has dipped to silly money before rising again. When I pre-ordered TCMSC 12B it was at £95.00 - it fell to £26.00 and that was all I paid for it. Remember that if you pre-order it you can cancel at any time before release, so if the price of an item doesn't fall to what you are prepared to pay for it, or find it cheaper elsewhere, just press cancel. One word of warning though - occasionally an item will suddenly go out as being temporarily unavailable before release and you will be offered to subscribe to an email from Amazon to be notified when it comas back into stock. Do NOT subscribe to this - just leave your original pre-order in place.
Best Of The Fantastic Four.
Attachment 9433
Hi!
http://www.soulexpress.net/fantastic...iscography.htm
Best regards
Heikki
Now featured at the Ace website:
http://acerecords.co.uk/the-lost-motown-album
A riddle I've always puzzled over and which Keith or Paul might be able to solve.....
On the liner notes of The Best Of The Fantastic Four album, Reggie Goodwin writes "I can't help smiling when they sing "Where Do I Go From Here" because I know, and they know, the direction is up and away into the unlimited horizons of stardom." Yet there is no track of this name on this 11 [[not 12 ) track album, and I assumed the track had been left off in error.
Attachment 9439
Al Kent recorded a track of this name, as did the Four Tops.... written by the team at RicTic....so can I assume there a Fantastic Four recording of this track somewhere in the vaults?
AL KENT VERSION -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVEZGrcNW5o
FOUR TOPS VERSION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlO9Q-EX-_U
Yes, Mike, you are right: there was an FF version of "Where Do I Go From Here" recorded at Golden World, and the tape is still in the Motown Vaults. My guess is that Motown intended to use it on the album, then discovered that it had never been released so dropped it. The track became a contender for the Cellarful series at one point, don't know why it was dropped a second time - over to Paul on that one!
A re-make of the song, assigned to the FF, was started at Motown in mid-1969 but the group never recorded vocals. If they had completed it, we would likely have included this second version on the Ace CD. But the scope of that CD was always intended to be Motown recordings only, thus the original version was not a contender. So it's only been dropped twice so far, and third time lucky is still a possibility!
Wow! The Four Tops version of "Where Do I Go From Here" is great [[Levi could do no wrong), but I especially love the instrumentation on Al Kent's recording. [[It's amazing how much he sounds like Levi on that record.) Those are clearly The Andantes on Al's record. It must be one of those sessions where the girls AND the Funk Brothers snuck over to Ric-Tic to lend their talents when Berry Gordy's back was turned! Interesting, Mike Terry [[Motown's baritone sax man) arranged the music charts. I'll bet Berry issued betrayal fines galore [[$$$) for this one! If I had heard it on the radio back in the day, I would have sworn it was a new Motown release.
The samples are up now! The 29th can't come soon enough.
I really tries NOT to listen to the samples....but couldn't resist.
How in the world has this music taken so long to get released?
I can't wait!!!
This deserves a bump just to keep it on everyone's radar!
I can't wait!!![/QUOTE]
I was going to place an order with Amazon USA but in doing so I just discovered that it will not be released until July 10, 2015.
Please be advised accordingly.
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Motown-Al.../dp/B00XAB4ZRU
Arrived yesterday, what a True Gem!
Really enjoying this CD. I think this is the first Motown purchase i've made this year. But it has been worth the wait.
Thanks to all at ACE. A real gem to add to the collection.
Great CD been on in my car since Monday loving Sweet James Epps voice
Ace never let us down. I only hope the fans continue to support the product. They say they will continue their great work as long as it is financially and creatively worthwhile. Let's make them keep to their word.
I ordered from Amazon US so haven't received mine yet.
Please, one of you members post a review on Amazon. That's the best way to spur sales and we want to be sure these sell out for Ace so they'll keep releasing more great Motown. Raving about the album here is preaching to the choir!
I'm not familiar with this group's output so can someone advise if the songs have the classic Detroit sound or were the backing tracks cut elsewhere.
Thanks.
They were all cut at Hitsville.
Yes the song was called for one of the volumes of Cellarful having never been heard, I auditioned the track and to be honest felt that it wasn't quite up there with the quality we had come to expect from FF. That may have been why a rerecording of the vocals had been scheduled. In this case it was much better to leave this particular song in the can.
I know ACE has largely taken over this role, but I, for one, would sure welcome a Cellarful of Motown Volume 5 or Tamla Motown Connoisseurs Volume 3. The latter series being a nice mix of rarer and unreleased Motown.
While we're at it, how about some more in the Soul Satisfaction series or even Big Hits and Hard to Find Classics Volume 5? Those were the days my friend.
Attachment 9672
My copy arrived safe and sound direct from ACE.
Thanks Keith and the team at ACE for another great release.
I can't wait for the next one...
In the meantime I'll enjoy the "Sunny and Warm' weather..............................
Nice weather ? Blink and you'll miss it.
I couldn't agree more! It seemed like Bobby was on some Norman Whitfield-esque ego trip with that one. The rest of the songs are spectacular. "You Turn Me Around" and "A Little Too Much", could of been singles. "Can't Forget Abut You , Baby" was one of my favorites from the Ice man, But Sweet James had me saying "Jerry Who?!" I can't believe it sat in the can all these decades.
There were many posts over the years imploring the "authorities' to release The Fantastic Four anthology, amongst other acts such as Blinky and Ivy Jo. I imagine the actual numbers sold are commercially sensitive, nevertheless, is it possible to indicate as to whether the release of The Fantastic Four has been commercially successful or otherwise.
If The Fantastic Four release has not garnered commercially viable numbers, I guess we should all expect the fountain to run dry......