I took my wife, son and nanny on their first photosafari may 2008 left for home june 8th. my wife and nanny shot their very first big game animals at a buddy's concession around Steenbokpan, two impala's. He delevered the capes, horns at the end of June. They are still sitting at Highveldt. Fast forward to August, I hunted Zambia with Muchinga shot 5 animals including a leopard, got home september 16th. The skins are now being tanned at new method. If you have your taxidermy done by Highveldt your work will be done in a timely manner but if they are only shipping your stuff, you'll suffer along with service like Linda Adams and Zim. No reason for this. You decide.
Chipolopolo

In '05, I shot ten animals with Warthog Safaris in Limpopo. Had Highveld do them. Took me a year to get the finished stuff, and it was crated exceptionally well and finished very well, also.

Haven't shipped anything with them, but don't compare African shipping to the rest of the world's. Highveld is a good company, from my experience, always ready with an email reply to a question and great on the phone. I would use them again.

Its only been seven months. It is Africa, after all. I guess being married for over 25 years to a woman of Irish descent has me used to waiting seemingly inordinant amounts of time for things to happen. Prepared me well for Africa.

That's a good one!

Had the worst experience with these clowns. They promised me 12 months, took 3 years to ship! Their taxidermy work was shoddy. Tried to correct their mistakes here, but the hides were tanned using whatever method available. Could not rework them here.

And their attitude? They could care less. Caveat emptor.

One of the reasons some shippers take so long is they wait until they have full shipping containers. That way they get the best shipping rates. The cheaper they can ship your trophies the more money they make! Sometimes it all about money.

I'm really surprised to hear that. I have a zebra rug they did on my bed, impala and blesbok hides on my couch and a silver backed jackal on my desk chair. All hides were tanned to perfection. The mounts are excellent quality. They were delivered on '06. Shot them in August '05 and received them in August '06. Something must have changed. Might be black empowerment rearing its ugly head. Who knows?

Jet,
My pal is about 4k further down that same dirt road but across. Seven months for South Africa is piss poor. They even said to My freind on delivery "if we mount them here it would be faster". they were exceptionally fast at hitting my credit card though. My point is that Zambia is basically a third world country but my stuff always gets here quickly. I believe its strictly the shipper, The DuPlooys have always been exceptional with trophy handling and shipping.
Chipolopolo

I'm quite surprised to hear these things as well. Not my experience with Deiter any time I've used him, but I did have him do the mounts rather than dip & pack if I'm understanding correctly that's what you did. Haven't been in contact since 06 and I know BEE was on the horizon at that time, who knows??? If this is what's become of them it's a real shame. Over several years I had very good service and communication and excellent workmanship and packing. I hope these are just a couple isolated bad experiences as every business experiences from time to time.

I used Highveld in 2006 and was very impressed with the work. Even the timrlien didn't seem unreasonable. Maybe yours took a while becasue they have a lot other clients. A good taxidermist is a good one.

7mm. guy

I have three animals with them that they have now had for sixteen months and they are still not able to give me a time frame for when I can expect them.

I do not care how good or bad the quality is , they will never get any more work from me.