Try something pretty informal before sending the specimen to someone, so you have a preliminary ID before risking losing the sample. Take good pictures of it from different angles, and post it online asking for probable ID in several forums. I would recommend the blog "Whats that bug" and the Facebook community "Entomology" and even more specialised ones. There are some pretty good and helpful specialists there who might even want to see the real specimens for final confirmation, and you usually get a quick informal "cf." species.
There are a few useful Facebook sites that you can use to post images and usually get an answer.
Coleoptera Study Group and Friends of Coleoptera at the Natural History Museum (Entomology department) for a start.
Cheers, John
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