Japan to USA purchasing. See any problems?

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
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I've mentioned in a couple places that buying a Japanese horn from Japan is possibly the best idea, but other horns are cheap, too. Here are a couple comparisons of new pro tenors:

WWBW, YTS-62 III. Lacquer. $3341.99.
Rakuten Global, YTS-62. New. Lacquer. $2303.26 + $100ish shipping. (Rakuten mentions the new Yamaha necks, so I think this is a YTS-62 III.)

Kessler & Sons Music, Yanagisawa T-W01. Lacquer. $3489.
Rakuten Global, Yanagisawa T-W01. Lacquer. $2262.84 + $100ish shipping.

Kessler & Sons Music. Selmer S80 Serie II Jubilee. Lacquer. $6989.
Rakuten Global. Selmer S80 Serie II Jubilee. Lacquer. $4512.

Kessler & Sons Music. Keilwerth SX-90R. Black Nickel. $6107 (out of stock)
SoundFuga. Keilwerth SX-90R Black Nickel. 468,000 Yen ($3891 US). $120 worldwide; US shipping is $120 or free, depending on item. (I chose black nickel only because SoundFuga doesn't have a new lacquer one for sale.)

There may be customs charges, but that's only around 6% -- and custom charges are for items that have a value over $2000, so, $0 most non-pro horns. For kicks, I checked how much a round-trip ticket to Tokyo from Los Angeles, CA is, with hotel, for a 1-day stay, broke a month in advance. $714. I could fly out, pick up a horn and come back for less than the price differences between the US/Japanese prices I've mentioned. Finally, I didn't search hard for low prices, just places I knew had the horns.

Anyone see any problems with ordering from Japan and having them send to the US and/or flying out, buying a horn and coming back? Those are some pretty big savings.
 
pete said:
I've mentioned in a couple places that buying a Japanese horn from Japan is possibly the best idea, but other horns are cheap, too. Here are a couple comparisons of new pro tenors:

WWBW, YTS-62 III. Lacquer. $3341.99.
Rakuten Global, YTS-62. New. Lacquer. $2303.26 + $100ish shipping. (Rakuten mentions the new Yamaha necks, so I think this is a YTS-62 III.)

Kessler & Sons Music, Yanagisawa T-W01. Lacquer. $3489.
Rakuten Global, Yanagisawa T-W01. Lacquer. $2262.84 + $100ish shipping.

Kessler & Sons Music. Selmer S80 Serie II Jubilee. Lacquer. $6989.
Rakuten Global. Selmer S80 Serie II Jubilee. Lacquer. $4512.

Kessler & Sons Music. Keilwerth SX-90R. Black Nickel. $6107 (out of stock)
SoundFuga. Keilwerth SX-90R Black Nickel. 468,000 Yen ($3891 US). $120 worldwide; US shipping is $120 or free, depending on item. (I chose black nickel only because SoundFuga doesn't have a new lacquer one for sale.)

There may be customs charges, but that's only around 6% -- and custom charges are for items that have a value over $2000, so, $0 most non-pro horns. For kicks, I checked how much a round-trip ticket to Tokyo from Los Angeles, CA is, with hotel, for a 1-day stay, broke a month in advance. $714. I could fly out, pick up a horn and come back for less than the price differences between the US/Japanese prices I've mentioned. Finally, I didn't search hard for low prices, just places I knew had the horns.

Anyone see any problems with ordering from Japan and having them send to the US and/or flying out, buying a horn and coming back? Those are some pretty big savings.
Click to expand...

Some of these prices are well below US dealer costs for the same items, so personally I'd be concerned about whether you were getting the real deal or a fake. I've seen multiple counterfeit Yamahas coming out of Asia, and while I haven't seen a counterfeit Yanagisawa yet I have no doubt they exist.
 
I'd worry more if this was some Chinese company I was talking about or if they were on Alibaba.com, like this "Reference 54" from Selmer Salma (France).

Rakuten is the former Buy.com. There is a US website, but it doesn't have as much stuff (I've bought a few things there). Rakuten is essentially Amazon for the entire world, except the US and UK. SoundFuga has been around for years and their horns definitely look legit.
 
I'm fooling around with things Yanagisawa, tonight, and I happened to go to the Prima-Gakki website. For the folks that don't know the name, a lot of Yanis have the name "Prima" engraved on their bells. That's "Prima" from Prima-Gakki.

T-W01, lacquer: $2665. +6% for customs charges, that's $2849.

I went to Yamaha Global's website to look for an authorized Yamaha dealer. I found several. I picked one at random and checked prices.

YTS-62, lacquer: $2711. +6% for customs charges, that's $2873.

It was much more difficult to find an authorized Selmer dealer through the Selmer.fr website, because of all the fun with redirections. I did, tho. I'm going to have to switch horns because Safari was starting to choke on the translation. I'll also not bother with Keilwerth, ATM.

Reference 54 lacquer alto @ Kessler Music: $7119.
Reference 54 lacquer alto @ Nonaka Actus: $5302.

My exchange rates are calculated through XE.com.

The point of this exercise is not for me to find the lowest price for any specific saxophone, but to show that there are really low prices for horns in Japan and I didn't have to try that hard to find those prices. If I was in the market for a new horn, I might do some more research and see what the lowest prices I could find actually are and see if I could have the horn shipped to me. Hey, it's at least a $400 savings, so it could easily be worth the hassle. I also skimmed past a couple 'sites that said that taxes may be waived for foreign buyers, so bonus.
 
I'd stay away from Rakuten.
If you look at their satisfied customers you'd have to start checking under rocks to find any.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/buy.htm

They do the same thing with cameras. Prices too good to be true, which is usually the case.
 
SteveSklar said:
I'd stay away from Rakuten.
Click to expand...
From what I can see, the Rakuten Global (and the Rakuten.com website is somewhat like this) is that anyone can open a store "under" the Rakuten banner. It's sorta what Amazon does, but less stuff is fulfilled/guaranteed by Rakuten.

In any case, one of the reasons to switch to the authorized resellers, as I did in the post before this, is to try to take away the, "Well, this website/store has problems ..." argument.
 
For me this is more of an academic discussion since the chances of me buying a new sax are about that of a snowball in hell. ;)

That said, I know that I if I did buy new, I would want to buy locally--and by "locally" I mean in North America--through an authorized dealer. The reason is if there were any warranty issues with the horn, this way the problems could be dealt with, without having to send the horn out of country. (Since I have access to an address in the States, it wouldn't leave "the country".)

Canadian $ notwithstanding, I know who I would buy a new horn from: Kessler & Sons. I have played some horns that Dave has sold, and I love them. Jim's Reference 36 tenor is the closest to my Mark VI that I have ever found. Seriously, if I ever needed to replace one or the other of my Mark VIs due to whatever reason, I would talk to Dave. Being one of only a handful of Selmer Pro Shops, I know that what I would get from him would be the best horn, the best set-up, the best everything.

Also, they are authorized everything dealers from JK to Yani and everything in between. I personally wouldn't think of looking for a new horn anywhere else.

This is of course just MHO, and based on my experiences playing horns sold by Kessler, and on conversations with Dave. Feel free to disagree, and/or discuss amongst yourselves.

When it comes to buying vintage, I have a choice there too. My vote goes to QuinnTheEskimo. Matt is just a really nice guy, who can find you whatever you want/need. It's too bad our Cdn. $ sucks so bad ATM, otherwise that sarrus he recently had would have been mine. :(
 
I think it kinda depends on what you want and what you're willing to pay for.

If I really wanted that Reference 54 and really wanted to save cash, Selmer Japan is where I could go. As mentioned above, if I was really worried about setup/condition, I could fly there, pick it out, and come back for less $ than US dealers. If I was worried about warranty repairs, I'd send Selmer Japan an e-mail and ask if I could get it serviced by a dealer in the US before buying. Hey, I don't have to ship my Nissan to Japan if I need a warranty repair. I don't even go to the dealer I bought my car from for warranty work. I go to the place that's 5 miles away. My dealer is 60 miles away.

I think the caveats listed in this thread are definitely good and people should consider them. I think I want to write all this up into an article.
 
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