Dave: It is without postage. Postage varies of course. Today I have also found another seller for Derwent pencils where you can bid and based on the feedback, they don't go up much and the postage is cheap too, so this is also a possibility.
Interesting-items: I think if only 1 volume is damaged I would only have to send back that volume.
I almost wanted to buy them from Allans Music, but unfortunately they have gone bankrupt (VERY SAD, I did like to visit their store, and of course they have gone bankrupt because as they said buyers have changed their shopping attitude) and as they are not giving refunds any more if something goes wrong because they are in receivership status and they didn't have all the volumes in one shop where I could pick them up I thought I would buy them on eBay or from ABRSM.
A lot of sheet music (classical music) is in the public domain of course and can be downloaded for free from the IMSLP site. This is probably the main reason for the problems music stores are facing.
By the way, I did buy some pencils from an Australian seller, and the price was not bad, and they also arrived promptly, but they were not well wrapped (it was not an art shop, so they probably didn't have much experience with pencils). They just put them in a tough envelope rather than a padded envelope and I don't know if it is because of that, but the magenta pencil keeps breaking... ๐ A tough envelope doesn't break, but it doesn't really protect the item.
