Your trusted partner in the export of rare books from the EU
Helping booksellers, institutions and individuals outside the EU to legally purchase from inside the union
In the heart of Europe
Living and working in the EU, one of the benefits we enjoy, is that we can purchase items from European bookshops, eBay sellers, auction houses and other websites, knowing that they will ship their products to us.
Post Brexit, many European sellers have chosen not to ship to the UK. Of course this is a problem our American and Australian friends have encountered for many years.
A number of colleagues have approached us, and asked us to mediate to help them to obtain stock from within the EU. Hence our decision to establish BestBookForward. Our years of knowledge in the book trade, enable to us efficiently and carefully forward your purchases legally, and with the correct paperwork and export documentation to ensure swift, tariff and hassle free delivery to you.
Do Three Things Well
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Forwarding individual books
Straight to you as soon as we get it
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Consolidation of packages
Hold your purchases and send them on efficiently
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Collection from French auction houses
Parisian auctions become accessible
Forwarding individual books
We can receive books for you, and then forward them to your address outside the EU.
If required we can open the parcel to inspect it before sending it on. (Better to send if back if not as described before incurring further costs). We can send photos of the actual item to you if you wish.
More about what we do
Consolidation of packages
We can also hold onto individual packages for you, and send them on when you reach certain thresholds. This can be by time (send once a month) volume (send when ten items) or weight (send to maximise savings in weight).
Naturally, being colleagues and a bespoke operation, we can also be flexible. We are always open to a message such as “I know you aren’t sending for a while, but the next book arriving is ideal for the New York book fair, so please get it to me as soon as possible”)
Collection from French auction houses
Our next step will be to travel on a regular basis to the Paris auction houses and to collect packages on your behalf. We shall then forward these onto you either individually or consolidated. Naturally, we shall require a document from you for the auction houses to release items to us.
FAQ
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None! After we have agreed which services you need, we will provide them until you no longer need them! At which point you stop - without complex contracts or being tied in.
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Generally, if you can buy or sell it as a book, map or print seller, then we can handle it.
There is an element of trust. We are working with you as colleagues, and will trust your descriptions of what you are receiving. But we will only handle items that are legal to export from the EU.
Any items containing ivory MUST come to use with the appropriate CITIES documentation.
Export licences for manuscripts are the responsibility of the seller or the importer. We will facilitate the description of these where possible, but we are not in the business of applying for export licences.
Items from Italy are particularly problematic, and nearly every book from Italy requires and export licence. The seller must obtain these.
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Pricing is based on both what you require, and on many external factors. For example, the US war with Iran has led to a 40% fuel surcharge on DHL shipments at the moment.
We will endeavour to keep prices as competitive as possible, and will agree each price with you before we ship.
We hope to produce more organised / long term price sheets if and when the world settles down!
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That is entirely up to you. We would recommend a 20kg parcel as being the most cost effective - but if you only purchase rarely - you may want items sent immediately, or once a month.
You are in control and we are flexible - so even if we are consolidating, we can pluck out an item to send to you asap.
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Initially, we aim to do a monthly “auction run” as all the houses will hold items for 30 days for free.
If the demand is that more are required we will adapt and go up more frequently.
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At the moment, it probably isn’t viable to visit other cities. (Although we can always quote for a bespoke visit if you are making a number of purchases from an auction house).
However, there are a number of auction houses which are book specialists. We are hoping to set up relationships with these in the near future to arrange collection from them.
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