admin
Site Admin
Posts: 2,114
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Post by admin on Mar 29, 2019 5:55:34 GMT
EDIT and UPDATE (July 2019): A quick summary of the events of the past few months is in order - essentially it boils down to this. Shipping swords internationally has become harder in recent years. First there was the UK curved sword ban (with exceptions allowing traditionally hand made swords), then some carriers started to refuse sword shipments, as well as the various sword forwarders such as ship-to - all without warning. But the biggest blow occurred in March 2019.
There are no official announcements anywhere, so we have had to piece together what is going on using our contacts in the industry and the shared experiences of forum members. So what it boils down to is this - except for Germany, Poland and the UK, sending swords via USPS is more often than not ending in either the sword being returned to sender or disappearing into a black hole. At the same time, swords being shipped from China (which as of one year ago, all had to be routed via Hong Kong) are also being rejected.
As such, most sword shippers who ship overseas have switched to using Fed Ex or DHL - and so a sword that used to cost $60 to ship to Europe now costs from 3-6 times that price.. And even then, some branches refuse to carry swords while others are okay.
All in all, it means that shipping to Europe has suddenly become a lot harder and in many cases, is high risk and cost prohibitive and many sword sellers, unable to risk losing swords in transit or finding that ALL their shipments are being rejected (which is our exact situation) have been forced to stop offering shipping to Europe except on a per-inquiry basis simply because it is so risky and in many cases, the shipping is considerably more expensive than the sword itself..
Here in the original post.
It's not completely out of the blue..
There were big issues about a year ago, some rumblings recently - and now its hit with a SLAM - our own version of Brexit but with swords..
There's no explanation, but now ALL USPS shipments of Swords to Europe are being rejected - and it's not just swords coming from the USA, shipments from China have ALSO been halted and returned to sender (and that means, many will disappear in the black hole that is Shanghai customs).
Sword sellers all over the place are getting hit by this and losing shipments and taking hard hits in the process - and there are no workarounds left it would seem..
So without explanation, and regardless that swords are legal to own for collectors in most of Europe, it seems that you guys over there just had your rights to import swords clipped without recourse..
We will keep you updated of the situation as it becomes clearer - in the meantime if any European customers have any additional info please share with the community in this thread..
In the interim, we too have taken some hard hits with wasted shipping and now are attempting to clean up the mess the E.U. has gifted us all and like many other sellers, have no choice but to halt all European orders across all sword lines until the situation becomes clearer one way or the other..
Here is where we are at now - from an already much shorter dropdown list for shipping options and now, just 10..
Not fun going over the whole store and striking down what was already a minority of our products. The golden age of sword collecting is most definitely far behind us...
The ONLY option on the table still left (if you can really call it an option)..
While USPS and all China based shipments are currently impossible, at the time of writing this post Fed Ex and DHL are still sometimes accepting sword shipments.. Unfortunately, starting at around $180 per sword, its pretty much a mute point - and no matter which way you look at it, European Sword Collectors have just been delivered a knockout punch..
The ONLY winners here are EU based sword sellers - as they can still import in bulk (as far as I know) and now with no international competition, can charge prices even HIGHER than they already are.. Just 1000 Euros for a Hanwei Practical Katana might soon be a bargain..
Let's do what we can to understand and defeat this stupidity.. The floor is open (and lets try to avoid too much political discussion - though we do understand if in this situation, it's a bit hard to avoid..)
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stormmaster
Member
I like viking/migration era swords
Posts: 7,714
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Post by stormmaster on Mar 29, 2019 6:04:20 GMT
thats terrible news
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Post by MOK on Mar 29, 2019 6:19:09 GMT
Whaaat.
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Post by Siward on Mar 29, 2019 6:49:01 GMT
F*ck
Does this include the UK
I’ve read nothing about this, is there any documentation?!
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Post by Jordan Williams on Mar 29, 2019 7:21:41 GMT
Well, shoot. There goes my idea of an EC order, and any trace of a Blackfencer order for my club!
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Post by Siward on Mar 29, 2019 7:31:20 GMT
Well, shoot. There goes my idea of an EC order, and any trace of a Blackfencer order for my club! You might be ok with exports from EU. This might be just imports to the EU. |
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Post by Siward on Mar 29, 2019 7:31:51 GMT
Right, I’m going to do some checking and see what I can found out .
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Post by strigoil on Mar 29, 2019 7:45:21 GMT
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Post by Siward on Mar 29, 2019 8:27:27 GMT
Ok
I can’t find anything about this on the USPS site, neither as a general note nor as part of the restricted items list they have for each country (I checked UK and Germany).
I also can’t find anything about it on any EU official site, though I’m limited to searching their English pages and it maybe one of their pages listed in German or French.
Don’t know if one of our German or French speakers could do some checking?
One thing I can add, and this is specifically for the UK but as the UK rules are based on EU I assume it’s the same for the EU as a whole.
They can change the import rules but not ban the item itself without a change in law which means they could just make this change and not tell anyone.
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admin
Site Admin
Posts: 2,114
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Post by admin on Mar 29, 2019 9:02:29 GMT
The thing is, its being done very surreptitiously.. No notices anywhere, just rejected postal shipments on a scale never seen before across all EU member states..
These are the kind of labels sword shippers to Europe are seeing:
As noted, it appears DHL etc are okay as they are couriers, not a postal service. But as we all know, DHL and co are just too expensive.. Buy a $150 sword now and its going to cost over $400 with courier costs and duties, etc..
Its a real nightmare at this end, in this case that's $77 down the toilet with no recourse and a refunded order that may or may not make it back to us..
I truly hope that it is temporary, but the way things have been going the last 2 years, this looks like it might be the new normal and at SBG's end, we have been forced to remove all European shipping options to avoid being dragged down into the financial abyss by this madness..
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Post by Siward on Mar 29, 2019 9:29:57 GMT
Well the url on the sticker doesn’t exist anymore, it just takes you via a new url page to a page called “Preparing International Shipments”, which usefully doesn’t mention swords anywhere.
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Post by Siward on Mar 29, 2019 9:31:24 GMT
So just to be clear, UPS, Fed Ex, DHL should all be ok because they’re not a postal service ?
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Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,659 
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Post by Zen_Hydra on Mar 29, 2019 10:40:13 GMT
...moot...
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Post by airborne on Mar 29, 2019 12:28:08 GMT
It is amazing that certain well known manufacturers fro China are still telling potential buyers from the UK and I expect the rest of the EU , THAT ITS OK NO PROBLEMS WITH CUSTOMS ! It has actually been a little dodgy for a while now where swords are being confiscated by UK customs at will . It is hard but I will try not to get Political about this .
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Post by airborne on Mar 29, 2019 12:30:50 GMT
I would like some clarification from some of our EU members if it is ok for a UK buyer to purchase a sword inside Europe without ANY kind of hassle from UK customs ?
Thanks
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Post by airborne on Mar 29, 2019 12:34:25 GMT
Maybe it is a good time for any Japanese sword enthusiasts within the UK who need or want to sell second hand owned swords to start placing them in the classifieds section of this forum !
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Post by Weaponeer on Mar 29, 2019 13:05:57 GMT
The is no sword ban in the EU. Most Eu countries don't have any restriction on importing or owning swords. Why the shipment are rejected I don't know, but SBG shop as their customer should get an answer. KoA is still shipping to EU by USPS the price is in the 100+ USD range.
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Post by csills2313 on Mar 29, 2019 13:52:00 GMT
Dark times indeed. I fear we are going to lose a lot more of our freedoms in the US. Who knows how long before they decide to restrict sales of swords in the US. I read in the news lately that someone with a sword tried to attack the staff at the Church of Scientology in California. Such events are easily used as a reason to impose restrictions on the general populace.
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Post by Silent on Mar 29, 2019 13:53:00 GMT
I think these recent issues are related to importation from outside Europe, to regular particular singular persons inside EU.
And doesnt apply to EU stores/shops which are legal buissness'es of sword selling which import swords.
I dont think this applies to items already inside the European Union, though this is all a kind of shady operation, in which theres not much information of wheres have these new "orders" to reject packages came from.
I hope, in the short time someone from a European shop thats imports swords on a regular basis can probably share more information on the matter.
Cya
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Post by csills2313 on Mar 29, 2019 14:03:43 GMT
Maybe it’s related to all the trade wars that have started over the last two years. I know that in the US some things being imported have been gone up a lot in price. Maybe the E.U. decided to just create a restriction instead of imposing a tariff.
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