After almost 3 years, it's time

Finished taxidermy should breeze through-even “raw” products should be in and out in a day or two. I truly hope you aren’t paying storage for extra days. Good luck I am excited to see your finished products

Firebird said:

Finished taxidermy should breeze through-even “raw” products should be in and out in a day or two. I truly hope you aren’t paying storage for extra days. Good luck I am excited to see your finished products

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We are working with an importer that has a flat fee bonded warehouse.

analog_peninsula said:

Threads like this are a reason why I'm not planning on bringing anything back from my hunt in July. Sigh ... my buffalo from '22 only made it to my house about four or five months ago.

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I realize this is an old post but I just got my buffalo from 22 back 3 weeks ago

joker2400 said:

I realize this is an old post but I just got my buffalo from 22 back 3 weeks ago

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I'm curious who your outfitter/taxidermist was. I've only ever heard of 1-2 other people with longer timelines than ours. Those folks I know with longer timelines had CITES animals which added to the timeline.

HookMeUpII said:

I'm curious who your outfitter/taxidermist was. I've only ever heard of 1-2 other people with longer timelines than ours. Those folks I know with longer timelines had CITES animals which added to the timeline.

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Getting from Africa to my taxidermist was 6-7 months. Dip and pack with Highveld. I used legends taxidermy here at home, they seemed to struggle with the tannery. I think the tannery had the cape for 18 months.

joker2400 said:

Getting from Africa to my taxidermist was 6-7 months. Dip and pack with Highveld. I used legends taxidermy here at home, they seemed to struggle with the tannery. I think the tannery had the cape for 18 months.

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Ahh ok. That's understandable. The longest period was on the tanning and final work.

You are not the first person I've heard of with issues on the tanning side.

HookMeUpII said:

Ahh ok. That's understandable. The longest period was on the tanning and final work.

You are not the first person I've heard of with issues on the tanning side.

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I’m going bear hunting in the spring. Assuming that I am successful I will probably just use the Wildlife Gallery since they own the tannery

Seems like my crate from last year's hunt should be here, according to the Airway Bill the crate should have arrived in GA today. I'm waiting on Coppersmith to contact me.

I wouldn’t wait too long for Coppersmith to contact me, I was told my crate would take three weeks to clear customs and make it to their warehouse, I finally sent another email well after the three weeks was up and got an “away from the office response”, then when I checked again (initiating communication myself) a while later my crate was at Coppersmith (and my assumption is had been there for probably a couple of weeks with no attempt to contact me…) I pointed out this lack of communication and was met with a condescending tone and sarcasm and was told that I will not be charged for the storage at Coppersmith but they still will not tell me when they arrived at Coppersmith. I will never use them again, and have used them in the past (pre 2020 and they were amazing then)

PARA45 said:

Seems like my crate from last year's hunt should be here, according to the Airway Bill the crate should have arrived in GA today. I'm waiting on Coppersmith to contact

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ILhunt said:

I wouldn’t wait too long for Coppersmith to contact me, I was told my crate would take three weeks to clear customs and make it to their warehouse, I finally sent another email well after the three weeks was up and got an “away from the office response”, then when I checked again (initiating communication myself) a while later my crate was at Coppersmith (and my assumption is had been there for probably a couple of weeks with no attempt to contact me…) I pointed out this lack of communication and was met with a condescending tone and sarcasm and was told that I will not be charged for the storage at Coppersmith but they still will not tell me when they arrived at Coppersmith. I will never use them again, and have used them in the past (pre 2020 and they were amazing then)

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I hope your recent experience with Coppersmiths is an outlier, I’ve used them several times and have had outstanding service every time.
What office did you have trouble with?

Not to hijack this thread too much. I'll write a separate experience about this shipment (Once I get it). I don't know what it is with Coppersmith and me, but this is twice we have had issues. I'm still waiting on my crate; Coppersmith claims it's been ready for pick up since Monday. Trucking company is saying that they've been there twice, and no one knows anything about my crate. This morning, I personally coordinated a third pick up between Coppersmith and trucking company. I thought I paid for this service.

PARA45 said:

Not to hijack this thread too much. I'll write a separate experience about this shipment (Once I get it). I don't know what it is with Coppersmith and me, but this is twice we have had issues. I'm still waiting on my crate; Coppersmith claims it's been ready for pick up since Monday. Trucking company is saying that they've been there twice, and no one knows anything about my crate. This morning, I personally coordinated a third pick up between Coppersmith and trucking company. I thought I paid for this service.

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Doesn’t sound good, I’ve always picked up my crates so never had to deal with outside trucking companies.

Truthfully, I should have done that and call it a day.

Well, after 3 years and exactly 3 months, the crates are here and I have the mounts in my possession.

Our party elected to pick them up from the shipping warehouse near JFK. We are all between 1.5 - 2.5 hours car drive away so it makes no sense to spend on having them delivered. I was the last one to pick my crate up due to logistical reasons on my end.

Friday I made the pilgrimage out to the Jamaica, Queens area. Not my first time going that way. Very busy area, very crazy drivers. They put the crate in my pickup and off I went.



Back at the house, had a small panic moment when I noticed a hole, that had been patched, in my crate.



Thankfully, upon opening the crate, there was no apparent damage. What struck me right away was how large the mounts were. I did not remember them being that big on the ground, in RSA.



With the help of my cousin, and then my wife, we began to disassemble things. The euro's came out first. They both were surprisingly on Africa-shaped wood plaques. The only disappointing aspect was they drilled and tagged the horns/tusks, for some reason.



The blesbok full hide actually is very soft and lays nicely on the back of my recliner.



We then got to work on the shoulders. My wife came up with the idea for the configuration. Each are hung using specialized key-style heavy duty hangers, into separate studs in the wall. My 4 year old son couldn't resist "helping." He loves the mounts and has been pointing them out every morning now.



The mounts do have some rough spots. Hair slip, poorly hidden stitching, and gaps in the horn bases (which I can fix). I'd give them a 6-7 out of 10, depending on the mount. The impala came out the best and really is quite the unit.

I forgot to add, all the groups animals were indeed our actual animals. So that was good news. I know some outfits goof-up and mix up capes and/or horns but everyone actually got their animals they shot.

I do love all the mounts but was surprised how appealing the euro mounts are. Definitely will be considering more in the future.

Congratulations, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an update. It looks as if everything is in good shape and are very eye appealing. I see what you mean about the impala, he’s beautiful as well as everything else.
Congratulations again! It has my blood flowing waiting for my next shipment, hopefully before the South African shut down in December.

So glad youre saga came to a good ending.

That kudu will "wow" any guest you have in your home.

Hunt anything said:

Congratulations, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an update. It looks as if everything is in good shape and are very eye appealing. I see what you mean about the impala, he’s beautiful as well as everything else.
Congratulations again! It has my blood flowing waiting for my next shipment, hopefully before the South African shut down in December.

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Thank you! It's been a long road for sure. They aren't perfect, but they are good. I am happy to have the wall-space that I do, that's for sure.

My wife even said, when I do go back, we are going to hopefully need a bigger house by that time. My plan is for a buff and I have no idea how a shoulder mount is going to fit on the wall.

dchum said:

So glad youre saga came to a good ending.

That kudu will "wow" any guest you have in your home.

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I am even still in the "wow" phase. They are almost imposing when you are looking at them in the room.

The other day, I came back early from dropping some bear bait at one of my sites. I didn't want to wake my wife and kids so I slept on the couch in the family room where the mounts are. When I woke up, I was a bit startled as I forgot the mounts were on the wall. Kind of funny when you think about it.

I just received some pictures of my animals ready to be crated, now the juices are really flowing in anticipation!