Recent shipping issues

[Jean]

No need to thank me, Ron. I have spent an hour today between Customs and Ministry of Culture, I have learnt a lot. Same in France, shipping companies like UPS, Posts, FEDEX, DHL are chickening out when firearms are involved, were they Antiques and not submit to any administraive authorization. I am tracking Ron's teppo because it will become a reference (gun speaking), I am becoming an expert.

[1tallsword]

I have purchased several items from united states,Japan,singapore, australia and UK over the past couple months with no issues.its all about knowing how and who to ship with. having the appropriate paperwork and sometimes providing import or export paperwork. of course being a licensed importer and exporter of weapons for the past 10 years helps. when in doubt consult a broker. , anything can be shipped anywhere in the world folks, and I have done so. each and every case is different. I have scaled back a lot and only work now for close friends,long time customers and myself. the workload became too much and overwhelming. 18 years ago when i started collecting winchester firearms I found myself asking questions no one could answer, one person would say one thing and on and on.. I finally got sick and tired of relying on gov. officials to tell me what they didnt know. so I started a long drawn out process of educating myself on importing and exporting and finally securing my own permits,licenses ect.. this came with a great deal of blood sweat and tears so to speak.. hence the reasons why brokers are not cheap... niether are doctors.. :lol:

[Stephen]

Like button above

[Jean]

Jeremy, we are talking of using shipping companies like DHL, Fedex,EMS. There is no problem when it comes using brokers or Forwarding agents but in this case you will pay perhaps more than a fair% of the object value

[Daniele B]

My posts were lost due the passage to the new forum but however I'll try to do a short resume:

I'm in Japan and in the last years I have sent swords in Europe with EMS and DHL. As you know DHL doesn't accept swords on their flight from two-three years ago and EMS is not always ok because seems that a direct flight and some other things that we can read in this topic are necessary.

So I have started to send with FedEx and I was quiet satisfied with the service (not with the prices of course).

The last shipment with FedEx (to France) was the 25 november of the last year.

 

Today I've tryed to send another one in Italy and I must sadly confirm to you all that it's true that FedEx doesn't accept to send swords out from Japan from this year.

I'll try to send this one with EMS and I'll update here.

[Daniel]

Hi

 

Is there any positive news regarding this mess? Has anyone recieved a sword shipped from Japan by Fedex lately?

Regards

 

Daniel

[Marius]

Never had any problem with EMS but I live in Paris (over 20 blades).

EMS will not ship swords to certain countries now. Poland is on the list, France is not. C'est la vie, I presume. 

[Daniele B]

Hello guys,

 

I had some chat with sales managers of both FedEx and EMS Japan. Sadly I must confirm that FedEx will not accept any kind of sword from Japan and they don't do any exception to this. They said the they are aware that this is a big issue for customers and sellers and that they are going to lose many clients but this is their decision until some update.

For EMS, as said above, for certain countries it still works, but the don't assure that the sword will be accepted in the destination country.

Marius says that for France is ok but I've been told that France, Swiss and Italy are in the same situation and at the moment, in a short list of countries where I wanted to ship they said that the only one for which they accept the shipment (in other words, they let the package left Japan) is UK, but can't assure for the UK customs. The problem is not only the direct flight thing, because I've tried to ship a wakizashi directly from Tokyo in Italy (supposed direct flight), going there from my place (Hamamatsu, about 250km far!) but after two days a manager (not a postman) came to my house with my wakizashi and a lot of gomennasai...

Marius, are you referring to very recent shipments? Because until the end of november I've sent swords in France, but recently things seems changed. If yes please let me know.

 

However I'm investigating this and probably there is courrier that could solve this problem, I'll let you know when I'll ship the next sword (but now is very difficult buy and sell with these doubts about shipping...)

[Brian]

Well, I think that the answer for now is to find a reliable country that EMS will ship to (USA maybe?) and set up a broker there that will reship swords for a fee. Will add some expense, but probably less than Fedex and would include insurance. Is the USA reliable to ship to?

I am sure someone like Stephen or other members would consider a reshipping service for a reasonable fee, and EMS from the USA reaches most countries. Workable?

 

Brian

[Daniel]

I´m sure someone in the US are willing to help but wouldn´t there be a risk of paying double VAT and custom fees? Both when entering the US and then again when arriving in the final destination.

 

Regards

Daniel

[Brian]

I was basing it on my understanding that the US has no vat or duties for antiques. Am I wrong?

 

Brian

[Grey Doffin]

No duty on antiques entering the US.

Grey

[Daniel]

Yes on antiques but there´s a few bastards on this board collecting Gendaito(including me)

[cabowen]

I have found US customs fees to be hit or miss. Sometimes they are charges, sometimes not. I always have an invoice that states the items are being returned to the original owner following restoration, etc., and that it is not a commercial transaction. Most of the time, there has been no fee. Sometimes there has. I usually contest it and get it refunded. Still, like I said, hit or miss...

[hxv]

Yes on antiques but there´s a few bastards on this board collecting Gendaito(including me)

 

Daniel,

 

Don't despair.  Wait another 30 years and many, many of these gendaito will be officially antique!

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Ignis]

Has anyone enquired at dhl (if they even ship from Japan altho I would assume they do).

 

When i take a look at their webpage I see the following link:

http://www.dhl.co.uk/en/express/shipping/shipping_advice/prohibited_commodities.html#non_account_holders

 

For non account holders it sais: Antiques, works of art and fine art with an individual value in excess of £5,000

 

But when you check account holders i only see the following under restricted goods: 

• Antiques and works of art with a shipment value in excess of EUR 500,000

Nothing under prohibited. Might just be an idea. But then again i dont know if they accept swords at all and if they are based in Japan. Was just thinking it cause they website didnt specifically mention it.

[shibeni]

Hello, I was in contact with Aoi art, few weeks ago, about buying sword..which should be send to Slovenia /EU. I got an answer that sword must be decleared as "decorative or imitation, replica" sword...I am not shore if it is right time to order or not, becuse of shipping restrictions..About the taxes in Slovenia, we have 22% for all imported items also on antiques, so for my country declaration is not so important do to tax fees..And for now swords are not clsified as wepons, only "daggers" dubble edge, will be clasified as wepon. So I can't import yari or ken...

Regards,

Bojan S.

[leo]

DHL ships almost everything. The issue is insurance. this varies due to the country you send to or from. For many countries insurance amount is limited to 500€. Same goes for unique antiques, jewelry etc., they are not covered.

Here I would recommend a separate transport insurance issurd by many insurance companies. They cost around 1% of the insured value. This is recommended also to such buyers whose transport documents show that they paid very little money for their goods. This goes for EMS, too. 

 

EMS delivers without problems to Frankfurt-Airport/Germany, which is in the center of Europe. If you google the shippers(like Schenker) located there, they can handle import plus surface shipping to neighbouring countries. There are additional costs involved, but still better than no shipping!

 

Best, Martin

[Daniele B]

Guys, the reply of AOI is not correct, probably they are referring to the declaration to the local customs, made by the customer due the resctriction in his/her country, but they perfectly know that for export legally a sword out of Japan some documents from bunkacho are necessary and they can't send a nihontou with the authorization issued only for real nihontou and write on the package that it is a replica.

About DHL, about 3 years ago it was still possible, then the only available one was FedEx and as said now they quit their service, too. I have some contact inside DHL, they said a couple of weeks ago that the only exception that they can do could be in the case of very high value shipments/quantity, but we are talking of many many money, not the usual prices (I guess because they could earn more money from the fees and reserve a flight or a container only for a shipment).

[Ken-Hawaii]

Be very, very careful with DHL!! I got a firm written quote of $281 from them to ship a custom o-daiko drum I had made from New York to me in Hawaii. The drum was delivered, & then they tried to hit me for - are you ready? - $2,837.92. I finally reported them to our local consumer affairs agency, & they dropped the whole thing, but I'll never use them again. And the computer company I own had been using them for decades, so it wasn't like they didn't know who I was.

 

Ken

[lonely panet]

well its getting worse, bought 2 swords from Japan in the last 3 months, the first had to be resent many times only getting through on the 3rd attempt. the last one has been sent back to the owner and was told THERE WILL BE NO SWORDS SENT TO AUSTRALIA. and this was via EMS.

 

so the happy days of buying swords from Japan are coming to a end, so how does the big stores like AOI have so much success??

 

regards H

[Brian]

I guess we have to make sure the export paperwork is done nowdays....store them at a neutral location, and get members who are going to the DTI to bring them back. There are members from most countries attending. They can make some pocket money for the service.

Workable?

 

Brian

[Stoney]

Excuse my ignorance but has anyone asked the question why these companies will not ship anymore?

[Brian]

They and the airlines refuse to ship weapons. And they regard these as weapons, no matter what we or the Japanese Govt think.

 

Brian

[Darcy]

About shipping gendaito and shinsakuto, there is potentially a duty free classification for them. 

 

Antiques are 9706.00.00.90 (this is for antique items more than 100 years old made of iron)

 

But there is another category into which you can put younger blades, rather than the simplistic swords category. This is: 9705.00.00.90 and the category is described as:

 

Collections and collectors' pieces of zoological, botanical, mineralogical,anatomical, historical, archeological, paleontological, ethnographic or numismatic interest
 

 

The key argument here is that a gendaito or shinsakuto (oddly enough shinsakuto is easier to argue) is an ethnographic item. Japanese swordsmiths are maintaining a thousand year old tradition which is part of the Japanese culture and require a license in order to do this, and the output is controlled by the government. 

 

This is different from "a sword" which is any old piece of junk with a long blade. 

 

As such they should fall into this duty free category.

 

WWII era swords if I were to argue it is an item of historical interest so also qualifies. If someone wants to argue that WWII and its artifacts are not of historical interest then they probably have an uphill battle. 

 

USA has no federal VAT as that came up previously but each state will have its own sales tax (or lack of). Montana, Connecticut and one other that I can't remember have no state sales tax. There is an implication then that imports probably qualify for sales tax in most areas. Various states have varying levels of enforcement and ability to collect it and maybe different concepts over what it applies to.

 

Sales tax is generally an end user tax like a VAT, though again in talking about 47 states with different laws and as a non-citizen my knowledge is limited. But the idea of a VAT is that it doesn't apply to companies. Someone doing a brokerage service of receiving an item and trans-shipping it as a company would generally not be subject to a sales tax because they are not the end consumer of the item. In Canada how that works is that you would pay the tax on import and get a refund later after filing. I don't know how it works in the USA for a company that would be doing this, but probably there is a big headache of paperwork and money going back and forth. That's just a heads up because anyone doing a brokerage to trans-ship for people would have to be collecting fees to make all of that worthwhile, and people who would want to buy such a service should know in advance it's not simply picking something up and then changing the label and sending it out. It would be work and potentially money that is not recoverable while the company is functioning.

 

That is an importer may have to pay sales taxes on his current batch, then get them refunded, while waiting 2 months for the refund they are paying more sales taxes on the next set of imports... then by the time the refund comes in they are already owed another refund. So a chunk of cash is forever stuck playing catch between the importer and the government, being charged at the border and then after a monthly filing refunded. It only finally settles when the importer closes up shop and gets his final refund back or business dries up.

[cabowen]

State based sales taxes in the US are paid to the state in which a retail sale occurs. They are not paid on items a resident purchases outside of the state of residence.

[Kronos]

Pretty much any Japanese sword can be classified to be under 9705 as Darcy states, whether customs who are a law unto themselves accept that is another matter. For someone running a transshipping company it should be free for any VAT/taxes if it's only a temporary import, just like sending a sword to Japan for restoration.

[cabowen]

Which is why when sending a sword to someone I usually write "returning to owner following restoration/appraisal- not a commercial transaction" on the customs form. Seems to work...

[Darcy]

State based sales taxes in the US are paid to the state in which a retail sale occurs. They are not paid on items a resident purchases outside of the state of residence.

 

I think this is not correct, at best it is a state by state thing. There is no collection method at the border for imports to pay sales tax, but there is an enforcement method. 

 

I know of US based collectors receiving letters from their state governments (several happened at the same time in Illinois) having reviewed import records and demanded payment of sales tax on imports several years after the fact. 

 

US Customs says they do not assess state sales taxes, BUT they say they record entries and make the entries available to state governments to assess sales taxes after the fact. They make a point of saying some states do request these documents and assess taxes. 

 

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/295/~/taxes-on-imported-goods

 

What they say in this document is exactly what happened in this incident about 10 years ago or something. The imports at the time were maybe 2-3 years in the past, state reviewed imports and assessed a bunch of sales taxes after the fact.

 

People are often under the impression that if they do something like buy a bicycle at a garage sale that they don't owe any sales tax. I know in Canada that if you do this you're supposed to self-report the purchase and send along some money to your government. Since there is no automatic collection and no ability to review and enforce these things probably almost nobody does it. 

 

So I think for anyone that is going to transship they're going to have to check into their state's regulations and be sure they are doing it right, because who wants to end up with 100 requests for sales tax payments 3 years later because the state did a trawl through the customs records... 

[cabowen]

Well, when you buy something online from a retailer located in another state, the only people charged sales tax are those ordering from the same state as that where the retailer is located and the sale is made. I have never received anything from my state requesting sales tax on items I purchased out of state or out of the country, ever, and that is a lot of merchandise over decades...Maybe I'm lucky?