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Shipping to Europe

954Ink

954Ink

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Has anyone shipped a knife to Europe recently?
I usually dont sell knives and have no knife shipping experience. Someone saw one of my knife pictures and wants to purchase it. He is in Europe. I'm reluctant do the pandemic and dont want to lose the knife or wait months to be paid if its held up in transit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks fellow BF members.
 
Shipping is so hit or miss right now. I just had an item I purchased on eBay take five weeks to get here from England and a domestic Priority package took 7 days to get to the buyer (not to mention a couple of Amazon Prime nightmares...:rolleyes:) On the other hand I ordered two knives from Finland and each only took two days to get to me via UPS.

I’ll also add that I’ve passed on ordering a knife from a Russian site due to the extreme delays and uncertainty currently involved in ordering from over there.

Honestly, shipping a knife internationally even under the best of conditions can be a real pain. Add in the current situation and I personally just wouldn’t risk it.
 
I just recently shipped to a member in France. It took 9 weeks from shipping to delivery. That was USPS First Class Postage.
 
Don't even bother shipping to Europe right now. Kindly tell the buyer that due to the pandemic and the impact it has made you are not shipping to Europe.
 
Last week I got a knife from Russia that I ordered in March.
I recently ordered a CD from China and got it in about 10 days from eBay.
Take your chances.
 
Speaking for the Netherlands here; all packages send to me from the US during the pandemic, got delivered. But with exceptional delay, speaking months, not weeks.
For example; yesterday a package was delivered which was send end of March..
So if you have to send expensive stuff, i’d wait a bit till things hopefully settle a bit.
If a buyer insist, that’s at his own risk. Eventually it will get to him, but it’s gonna take a while.
 
I expressed my concerns with the buyer and he agreed that he wanted the knife enough to merit him the risk. I overly packed it up and shipped it to Sloavkia. I followed up with him this morning and he should be collecting the knife from customs Friday. I am excited for him to receive the knife.
 
shipped one to France took about 5.5 weeks and it was in France in less than one week.. So the French are slower than USPS...
 
It really depends on the country. I recently shipped a MT to UK that only took a couple weeks and something to Italy that was a little longer but not too bad.
 
I regularly buy knives from the United States ( Blade forum of course )and frankly I never had a problem. To individuals or cutlers
It is true that the delay is longer than usual but nothing serious
If all the elements are correctly indicated no major problem
Also the knife must be paid for before shipping so I don't see what scares you.
At worst you make a statement in good form
 
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The delay usually seems due to the European destination country's Customs system, rather than the postal system.

When shipping to Europe, I usually use FedEx even though it's expensive, because apparently FedEx employs its own private Customs people, which is part of the high shipping cost. The packages get delayed in Customs for only a day or two, rather than weeks or months. Not sure if this is all countries in Europe, but it's definitely some, and that's been my experience so far. Perhaps someone has more info about this.
 
I’m in the UK, recently bought a slipjoint folder from a gent in LA I think, took about ten days, bit of excess to pay at UK customs, other than that, everything went great, took about 10 days from payment to delivery.
 
Hey 954Ink 954Ink !

Did you end up shipping the knife? How did it go?
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
Hey 954Ink 954Ink !

Did you end up shipping the knife? How did it go?
Click to expand...


954Ink said:
I expressed my concerns with the buyer and he agreed that he wanted the knife enough to merit him the risk. I overly packed it up and shipped it to Sloavkia. I followed up with him this morning and he should be collecting the knife from customs Friday. I am excited for him to receive the knife.
Click to expand...

Sounds like he did and it went well.

Winston
 
USPS works fine for me usually - but, last time I got hit for duties and VAT. Maybe it was because my buddy shipped me four knives in new packaging and in one large box. Put that one down to experience. But, USPS has always been pretty reliable. The only other thing is the delays for parcels to actually leave the US: it took longer for my knife to get from TX to the airport than it did to get from US export to me. There are definitely delays on the US side. On the UK side, the only major delay is with customs inspection backlogs - unless it goes right through, as some have done.

Some UK couriers have limitations on what they'll carry: DHL and FedEx won't let me ship swords and knives with them, but UPS will. Maybe because UK law requires over 18 age verification they just don't want the hassle or responsibility of being required to check. But, UPS are still in there. Either way, shipping from outside the UK in, the only risk usually is taxes!

Exceptions are blades that are actually illegal: long, curved blades are technically illegal ("samurai swords") but as there are exceptions for anything pre-war, or that is "traditionally hand forged", the rule becomes virtually meaningless, as most makers claim the latter. More important one to remember are that spring-assisted opening ("flick knives") are a definite no-no.
 
He received the knife. Took 5 weeks total for him to have it in hand. It sat at customs in his country for a few weeks. Everything went smoothly thankfully. I packaged that knife up twice over. You couldn't even hear a rattle when you shook it.
 
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