Specialty items: pianos, art, classic cars and wine cellars

Most international moves we run out of the UAE are straightforward at the level of furniture and household goods. The complication, when it appears, is almost always sitting in one corner of the villa — a grand piano in the formal sitting room, a wine cellar in the basement, three classic cars in the garage, or an art collection that the family does not realise needs treating differently from the rest of the consignment. These are specialty items, and they reshape both the freight plan and the documentation.

Pianos — uprights, grands and concert grands

Upright pianos move with the household consignment in a standard sea container, provided they are crated. Grand pianos almost always require a custom plywood crate built around the disassembled instrument — legs and lyre removed, action secured, lid wedged. We commission these in Dubai through a specialist piano firm rather than the general packing crew, because a mover who handles three pianos a year is not the right hands for a Bechstein.

What we plan for, in order:

• Pre-move tuning is pointless — the instrument will need re-tuning after sea transit anyway
• Climate buffering matters most across the cargo deck: silica gel and shrink wrap inside the crate
• Crate the piano on its straight side, never on the bent side of a grand
• At destination, allow the piano two to four weeks to acclimatise before tuning
• Insurance is declared on full replacement value, not depreciated — underwriters are firm on this

Transit time matters less for pianos than humidity differential. A move from Dubai (low humidity, high heat) to Singapore (high humidity, high heat) is harder on a piano than Dubai to Toronto (low humidity, cold). Plan accordingly.

Fine art — the documentation often dwarfs the freight

Works above a certain declared value — varies by destination — need export documentation from the UAE and corresponding import paperwork at the other end. Provenance papers, prior export records, artist attribution, customs valuation: every piece we ship from Dubai is photographed, condition-reported and individually crated. Crate construction depends on medium: an oil on canvas needs different bracing from a bronze sculpture or a paper work under glass.

For high-value collections we typically split the consignment. The pieces that need climate control travel by air freight in custom crates with shock and humidity loggers. The bulk of the household goes by sea on the standard timeline. Air freight insurance is more expensive per kilo but the per-piece cost on a Damien Hirst is not the right place to economise.

Some destinations require a temporary import licence if a work is over a certain age — pre-1990 sometimes, pre-1970 more often. Italian and Spanish customs are particularly strict on cultural heritage rules. Check before the container leaves Jebel Ali, not after.

Classic cars — the corridor decisions

Classic and collector cars from the UAE typically move by RoRo (roll-on, roll-off) or in containers, depending on value and condition. RoRo is cheaper but the car sits on a vehicle deck with other vehicles and is not in a sealed environment. For a numbers-matching 911 Carrera RS or a Pagani, containerisation is the only sensible choice — either dedicated or shared, with chassis straps and wheel chocks rather than the floor straps used on rental cars.

Destination matters as much as the car itself. UK personal import rules allow a vehicle owned for more than six months to enter duty-free under Transfer of Residence. France applies a different test. Canada has age-based exemptions. The classic-car community in each country has informal but reliable knowledge of which inspectors are pragmatic and which are not — our coordinators tap into that network rather than relying solely on the published rules.

Wine cellars — the trickiest of the lot

Wine is heat-sensitive, regulated and often the item where the cost of getting it wrong is highest. A 200-bottle cellar built over a decade in Dubai cannot tolerate the inside-container temperature of a Jebel Ali to Mediterranean sailing in summer — we have measured peaks above 45 degrees Celsius inside an unrefrigerated container on that route. Realistic options:

• Refrigerated (reefer) container — expensive, but the right answer for cellars above a few hundred bottles
• Air freight in temperature-controlled crates — the right answer for the irreplaceable bottles; the rest can stay behind
• Sell at origin, rebuild at destination — sometimes the right answer for a young cellar of widely available wines

Then there is the licensing piece. The UAE is not a major wine producer, but the export side from Dubai is manageable. The import side is where families get caught. Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, France — each has different rules on personal import volumes, duty bands, and what counts as "personal use" versus "commercial quantity". A 500-bottle move into the US, for example, would typically need an importer of record because it exceeds the duty-free personal threshold by a wide margin. We loop a specialist wine broker in early on these moves.

One thing applies to all four

Specialty items extend the move timeline. A vanilla container of household goods from Dubai to most destinations is six to ten weeks door-to-door. Add a grand piano and a wine cellar and you are at twelve to sixteen. Add classic cars with destination registration paperwork and you can be at five months. Plan the calendar with the slowest item, not the fastest. And on the booking call, mention every specialty item upfront — surprises after the survey crew has left are expensive to design around.