A friend of mine in the UK has come into receipt of a small library of books on a specialized topic. Their collective weight is over 200 pounds. Since most of them would be extremely expensive to buy on their own, she is interested in finding out the most economical way to get them shipped to her in England from California. I know that most people have more experience shipping from the UK to the US, however, I am wondering if anyone has shipped heavier weight items the other way and may have some suggestions I can offer to her. She is willing to do the research herself but just doesn't know where to start. Any recommendations or suggestions would be very welcome. Thanks!

If I was traveling there myself I'd probably take them as excess baggage in two trips, but that is probably not very practical for her. Lots of people use excessbaggage.com with great success. Or try posting this in the moving back to the UK forum on BE.

USPS have a special book rate, which is cheaper than regular mail. However, given she has that many books, perhaps a company that ships by volume rather than by weight would be better. This is how I shipped a lot of books from Australia to the US. I contacted a couple of moving companies, but because I didn't have enough to ship for their purposes (and it was mainly books) they referred me to someone who specializes in smaller shipments. Perhaps this is something your friend could try?

sevenseas worlwide.com

Well, no box or bag is allowed to weigh over 32.5kgs. This is the maximum weight that any one person is allowed to lift. 200lbs of books is roughly 90kgs. So that's three to four boxes that would be needed.

excess baggage does a two foot box which is designed to be filled with books (you can fill it with heavy books and it won't exceed 32.5kgs). I shipped about 6 of these boxes of books, which is far more than your 200lbs in weight. Many were hardbacked books too.

You can choose to fly them over or use sea passage. Air costs more, obviously.

does the service seem to be good with Excess Baggage? Everything arrived safely??

Looks interesting!

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone. I will forward them on to her. If any one has any other ideas that haven't been suggested yet, please feel free to post them as well:-). You guys are great!

Well, I sent my stuff off, from the UK, on the 1st December. Today I had an email telling me that it is ready for delivery from the 7th Jan. Considering they told me it would be 10 weeks, that isn't bad going at all.

They delivered all the boxes for packing (plus tape and bubble wrap) the next day, after I placed my initial order. The telephone staff were very helpful too. The delivery man carried the boxes from my lounge to the van, no heavy lifting by me required. Overall I have been impressed by them. I'll let you know what condition my stuff is in when it arrives!!

I will be interested to hear your ending result! Mentioned this to Chris tonight. We've brought over a lotof this things over the last year or so but there is still a great deal. Perhaps this is the way to ship it! Thanks!

Oh and congrats again! Must be exciting for you guys to be so close...

Thanks for all of your recommendations. I forwarded the information to my friend in England who checked out each of the options and determined that it is most practical for her to have them shipped by USPS. It works out to about a dollar a pound - half what a courier quoted - and more straight forward than the process for excessbaggage and sevenseas. Everything she needed to know she was able to get from their website. She wanted me to express her sincere appreciation to everyone - problem resolved.