in hindsight i think the best is www.ipsparcel.com/

They're shipping rates are a little higher than ****ito...i mean shipito - but with the HUGE advantage that they allow you to make the shipping invoice and barcode etc, then they'll pick it up from the seller's local post office.

So say if i had contacted the seller, and said box it up, stick on the shipping receipt and then take it to your local post office, and they'll pick it up - so i wouldn't have had to have paid for the shipping to california, which in the long run makes it much cheaper.

The disadvantage for australians is you have to have an american who is willing to ship and deal with overseas customers, whereas with shipito, the seller only needs to ship it to california. Unfortunately, sometimes american sellers just don't want to even talk to someone from overseas. Even though we're from the beautiful downunder! (we can't be THAT bad can we!?!?!)

I've generally found that if i ask the seller if they'll ship then most of the time they will. In this case the seller said no to shipping to me then said yes if I paid $275 for the drum. Looks like a costly mistake on his part now. I was looking for a bargain to be fair as i just bought 2 of these (5" and 6.5") but I would have paid more than this. And, really, shipping a snare to NZ via USPS is pretty straight forward. Whole kits are obviously a whole other story.