Thread: US Customs vs Straight Razors

Ive just gotten in the past few months razors from,Germany,Italy and believe it or not Bulgaria-no problems at all.
Some came from Revisor and Puma so they know what compinies they came from. Just my experiances

US customs takes less than 10 days to ship and clear, Ive regularly sent packages all over the world and receive packages from all over including Iran. The US customs won't give you any grief over a razor, the only items I've ever had get caught up in customs was a few bottles of absinth and a high powered laser from hong kong. Don't worry to much about your Ebay feedback either if you tell them its hung up in customs they will understand

Ivory and diamonds might be pretty much alike in the quantity of paperwork required, but the reasons are quite different. Diamonds are a very portable, often stolen form of great wealth, which African peasants sometimes mine on a non-optional basis to support warlords. With ivory, despite supporting the occasional warlord, the main reason is the CITES treaty on the protection of endangered species. You could rescale a few razors with the pieces Indian elephant owners saw off, to prevent elephants from endangering each other in workplace disputes. But there is no exemption for that.

Intuitively, rather than from looking into it, my guess is that if something obviously not new had ivory parts, the lack of documentation might result in confiscation, but is less likely to result in prosecution. I think deliberately circumventing the law, and giving a market value to elephants recently deceased, is what they are really hot upon.

One annoying feature of the treaty is that you aren't allowed to recycle an old ivory object to make anything new, and possibly to rescale a razor. I can't see any elephant taking harm from that, but I suppose the idea is to close off a way of explaining objects made with smuggled ivory.

The British customs are indeed keen on collecting taxes, plus an iniquitous admin fee of £8, on postal imports. It only applies over £18 value, and the main element is Value Added Tax, which is simply the same as the ordinary domestic sales tax of 20%. I think the contribution to the economy is miniscule, and the main intention is to avoid protests from domestic retailers, who dread the competition. They very rarely open packages, and I had no trouble at all importing various European antique cartridge revolvers, including one with ivory grips.

For eBay sellers is it worth including a form of words they suggest, saying that import duties or delays aren't the seller's responsibility. If you include that, they will remove any feedback that criticises you for it.

In the U.S no one is going to get prosecuted for nickle and dime stuff. They just confiscate it. For bigger stuff the have civil money penalties. Prosecution is reserved for specific classes of violators.

A few weeks ago I got a Revisor from the factory in Germany. The shipping only took about one week, by regular post, not UPS. There were no problems.

I have a straight in ivory coming from Sweden that I ordered Monday...will get back with you when it makes it in.