I feel protected now!

When I went to the Kalamazoo Living History Show last month, I ordered a blunderbuss for myself. I felt I needed another toy to play with that burns powder. It was bought in hopes of using it this weekend. The guy I ordered it from originally told me I should have it by this weekend with out a problem. Well, guess what? There’s a problem!

Sixteen days ago, I wrote my dealer to check on the status, re-iterating that I really wanted it for this weekend. He told me that he will check into it and if there is any possible way of me getting it on time, he would do it, including paying next day air rates at no additional charge to me. The very next day he forwarded me an e-mail from the manufacturer stating they shipped him the weapon in two packages on 04/05/05. There was an attachment on the e-mail. I don’t think my dealer meant to forward that part to me. When I opened it, it was the complete original e-mail from the manufacturer with his account info; it also had the tracking numbers for the packages with descriptions of what is in each package. (Can you see where this is going?)

The company that manufactures the weapon is based out of Nova Scotia in Canada. Apparently, they cannot ship functioning firearms across the US border, even “primitive firearms”. Therefore, they took the lock (Hammer/Frizzen/Springs) off and shipped it separately to my dealer from the stock and barrel. Well I was able to use the tracking numbers to see what is going on with these packages. The locks where received by the dealer on 04/07/05. It took them only 2 (two) days to get to him. When I saw that, I was sure I’d have my new Blunderbuss with plenty of time to spare.

Well two days later, I hadn’t heard anything. So I thought, okay. I’ll check the status of the stock and barrel. DAMN THINGS WHERE STUCK IN CUSTOMS! God dammit!

I tortured myself, checking the status every day for that second package. It didn’t move out of customs for over 2 weeks, 16 days to be exact. I’m glad they shipped it express, because that sure sped the process up!

Well I go to check this morning… wait, something is different. It moved out of customs yesterday and was delivered this morning!