Buying knives from overseas?

I

IamMatt

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Mar 20, 2002
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Anyone know anything (loaded question!) about buying knives from knife companies in Europe or Asia? Once or twice I have run across a particular knife being sold by an foreign company that is hard to find domestically. Has anyone bought knives from companies in Europe or Asia who could shed some light on typical shipping expenses, whether there are tarrifs (hope George W.'s steel tarrifs don't apply ;-}), etc.?

Thanx.
 
I've bought several knives from Europe, Eastern and Western. No problem when I used Express delivery. I've never had to pay tariffs, I think because they came in small packages. I have one coming from Rob Brown in South Africa, he says it takes about 2 weeks from there to here using air mail. I'm not sure about tariff on that one but others who have bought from him said they have had no tariffs. Again, I'm talking about single knife packages. The worst part of ordering overseas is the wait.

DaveJ
 
Great!

Is there a "typical" shipping charge for a small package or does it vary widely? Do you happen to know if there is some dollar or weight or unit # level where some sort of tarrif or customs problem might kick in? Thanks. Matt
 
For a factory product such as a knife, the import duty is 10%.

Customs often fails to check smaller packages and you often don't have to pay. If you do have to pay but the amount ends up being small, I don't know where the line is but I have personally receive bills for as much as $880, what may happen is that your box may arrive with a tag attached to it telling you to mail a check for that amount to the given address. You just mail in a check. If the amount of the duty gets quite large, then you'll have to pay before you receive your item.

If your shipment is going to exceed about $10,000 where the duty exceeds $1000, then you'd probably be well-advised to hire a customs agent (look in the yellow pages) to shepherd that through for you.

Now, there is no duty on hand-made art. So, if it's a custom knife, then just be sure that the maker labels it "hand-made art knife" and you will not face any duty.
 
So does that mean that they can not just send a small package to me by mail or one of the delivery services like Fed-Ex or UPS? It somehow gets held up somewhere and someone decides I have to pay some sort of duty? Should I call the Customs Service to find out this stuff?
 
No they can not just send it door to door. Any package that arrives from another country goes through Customs. They then decide if there will be duties and possibly taxes added. If sent by Fed-Ex they do all the paperwork and you pay quite highly for that service. UPS will contact you and ask if want them do do the Customs paperwork or if you have your own Customs Broker. If you use either it will once again cost you quite a bit. In Canada the Postal system is the least expensive way to get something from another country. They charge far less to do the paperwork than other shippers or Customs Brokers do.

Make sure the knife is fully insured.
 
Can I get a straight answer from U.S. Customs regarding the amount of duty if any, or is it as random as the IRS? IOW, Can I call them and say, "If I but 3 knives totalling $250 from Japan, what will it cost me in duties?" and get the right info? Am I better off calling a customs broker? We are not talking about a lot of money here or shipments of cases and cases of knives...
 
Something else to consider....I once ordered a knife from a foreign company. The guy emailed me and said that the card was declined. It was odd because that card had no balance. I decided to bag the deal. A few weeks later I went to use the same card on a different purchase, domestic this time, and was told the card was invalid. I called the credit card company and they told me there was a freeze on the card. It seems that the foreign maker typed the number in wrong on his machine. When that happens from a foreign source the credit card company automatically freezes the account. All was straightened out right then and there. I never did reorder the knife though.
 
I hate to disagree with you,but yes,they do ship door to door.I have bought autos from two different companies in Europe:they arrived via airborne express in FOUR days to my door,no questions,no signature,no nuthin".
 
As implied in my previous post, I am beginning to feel the randomness of the Federal Government...
 
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