I got a
reship account. It isn't cheap, but it is very user friendly. I have previously made deals with forum members here who live in japan for trades vs hassle to buy and ship for cost. It worked out well for both of us vs the cost of a re-shipping service.
I've always had an easy experience with Reship. I know there is slightly cheaper, but I couldn't chance rare hardware with a different option.
Also, yes - the Swancrystal is definitely worth the premium price. The deficiencies of the previous models have all been significantly improved with no compromise, and the Crystal version is the penultimate hardware.
Unless you really like (I do!) the gameboy-like passive display matrix ghosting, or the washed out interlaced-like tft display the WSColor has, you definitely want the Crystal over any other model. I only love the older models for their deficiencies; I wouldn't ever recommend them for enjoying a game.
You know how the GBC has a B&W palette that still had just the right amount of passive-ghosting to enjoy a great shmup like ZAS for the GBM. That's still there on the Crystal - the mono games still have 50% shading on the interframe-blending effects, but it has not-shitty color too, on which the previous models fail.
I love how the display fails on old systems to the point that and I have some specialty lighting set up like a photographer might to enjoy gaming on old handhelds.
I don't recommend it if you don't have to go to that extreme (it's kinda hot on the hair). In the WS case you do not need to do that. Just get the Crystal model and be done.
I'm still kicking myself in the ass for missing the first round of
Flavor's WS Flashmasta. I'll definitely snipe it next time...
At some point in the far future, Kevtris will have an early prototype of his
ultimate FPGA handheld which will perfectly reversed-engineered-clone all early handhelds (Holy shmit!). I'm mesmerized by his WIP videos.