Hi Philip, I'm not sure but it's certainly possible. I generally use the same cardboard box to ship swords and it's 125cm long.

Further to #25 above regarding the sword sent to New Zealand by DHL Deutschepost, I should perhaps have added that the cost was 47Euro and the parcel weighed 1.78kg. Length was 1m. For the size and distance I would have thought that this cost was very reasonable. It would appear that from the comments posted, that the major part of shipping cost could well be the charge for packing etc.
Stu

FYI --deliveryby DHL
 

DHL just delivered an Indian dagger sent by a customer in Europe for blade polish. Described "Art metalwork, jammadar kattari, Indian >100 years old". Package not opened en route, no stickers or tape from CITES inspection. Took less than a week including a Sat./Sun. to get here.

My colleague in the Netherlands still uses UPS as well as Netherlands Post to send swords to the US. So that leaves FedEx as the absolute no-go for all weapons, antique or otherwise, between countries. (TNT has been bought out by them so it doesn't operate on its own anymore.)

i received a dagger by fedex today :shrug: :confused:

but i had to wait for 4 weeks so i also cant recommend them.

Hello Udo,

I’m not sure who you mean by “them” - if the Italian government decides to actually enforce standards on culturally important artifacts that are pretty much agreed on globally, I suppose we can’t really blame the government much less any company operating there.

As collectors we also have to bear with idiosyncratic national regulations that surpass global standards like Italy on “weapons” even if antique/obsolete, the US and UK on antique ivory, and the list goes on and on...

BTW, Czerny’s mentions the imposed regulatory processes and timeframe on the website if I remember correctly.

Regards,
Kai

P.S.: Small inoffensive pocket knives get regularly confiscated by the Italian customs (even when exciting Italy!) - better not try the ferries from IT to GR...

My entry has nothing to do with italy or czernys :p

I was talking about fedex being the worst shipping experience.

Thanks for your explanation! From the other comments in this thread it seems that you got really lucky to receive it at all and the parcel not getting returned to the sender... :rolleyes:

Just my personal experience with Czerny's and shipping from Italy to France:
I am regularly buying krisses and kris hilts from them, their shipping service is slow but it is partly justified because they have to go through the very bureaucratic Italian Customs regulations (export permit).
Their shipping rates are quite high but no exorbitant (45 USD for shipping a balinese kris for instance, I always insist to get the best rate) and up to now I received the items safely.
The direct consequence of the shipping problems to some destinations is that there are very few bidders as compared to other international auction houses and you can achieve excellent deals in some cases.
Regards

Ok so try this out: got a beja dagger at auction from Italy and paid around $240 in shipping alone! We'll see how it turns out when it comes in. :rolleyes:

How much does a beja dagger weigh? I just got a sizeable book from the big auction house in Italy, package weight a little over 2 lb, was charged 80 euro for FedEx international economy. Got It within 2 weeks of wiring the payment and it would probably have been faster if FedEx didn’t call me from their hub in TN asking me to translate the title for them and tell them what it was about and how old it is. (My replies to them included the jibes “hey don’t youse guys read Italian?” and “whadidya expect, the Gutenberg Bible?” - luckily the rep has a sense of humor)

about a month ago i won a bid for a pair of kerisses of not v good quality but one had an ivory handle (which is the reason i bid for). I did not worry about this because ihave received quite a few keris from UK with ivory grip previously. but this time, the auction house declined to post to me. I then requested mailbox etc (which only a few months before sent a keris with ivory handle to me without any problem) but this time they refused. I found another one that is willing to apply for CITES certificate for my item and their initial quote for post + cites certificate process is around 235 pounds. The process is till ongoing and not completed yet. My winning bid was only 60 pounds. In conclusion i am basically screwed.

Ouch! Just curious, did the shipping firm itemize their price quote - CITES certificate fee, packing, shipping, insurance, their markup, etc? Once the paperwork is completed, what carrier will do the transport? ParcelForce, ccommercial courier, etc? I hope that with the certificate it can be delivered to you directly and not involve the services of a customs broker on your end to clear the importation which would result in additional fees.

I’ve had that experience when I bought an antique pistol from a London saleroom last year. Auction houses operate in a legal fishbowl and need to cross all their T’s and play by the rules all the way. My purchase had to go through a licensed freight forwarder ( and yes they had to show diligence re CITES to rule out ivory inlays) and because of the valuation on the invoice I needed a customs broker that cost me another $350 on my end plus the 400 quid that the UK shipper charged. Ridiculous, I thought, because all antiques enter the US duty free and there are no restrictions on flintlocks. But there was no way around this racket so just had to pay up and shuddup. Every country has different rules and though you said the value of your purchase was not that expensive, be sure that you check with your country’s customs office to verify what the formalities are for CITES affected material.

The only point I’m trying to make to all is that in this day and age of myriad rules governing arms and animal species, it helps to be fully cognizant if all the issues and costs connected with getting something from A to B before you bid in an overseas auction.

As a note for members, if anyone wins anything at auction near me (Wokingham, Berkshire, UK) I'd be happy to send it overseas to you. It's a long shot but thought I'd offer!

Phillip;

The quotation given was an estimate by them and not itemized. But they did inform that for getting the CITES certificate alone, the cost is 90 pounds. I am waiting for the CITES process to be completed and wait for the actual invoice from them. To be fair, the auction house did offer to resell my won item in their future auction but I decided to apply for CITES certificate and keep my won item.

I am not exactly sure what the custom officers at my end will do, as I no experience receiving shipment with CITES certificate before although I have received numerous ivory hilted items in the past several years without any problem from them.

MForde:

Thank you very much, that is very kind of you to help us with shipment. I'll keep this in mind if I have problems . For sure we'll not request you to ship ivory materials unless we have proper documentation.

Are there paints easily reversible?
To paint flintlock rifles with ivory inlay decoration or sheaths with some small, ivory-decorated parts?

For handles ivory in revenche I do not see how to hide them discreetly. :shrug:

Hey guys, Not to gloat (too much), but I just had a box of swords arrive in California from Italy. It shipped FedEx International Economy on Wednesday, 10/9, and was delivered in California on Friday, 10/11, before 10 am.

However, a shipment earlier in the year from the same place with UPS had a 30 day FDA and Fish & Wildlife hold, and nothing biological inside.

So I think luck is a factor.

Also, please don't circumvent CITES. It invalidates provenance and encourages fakes.

shooting craps with alligators
 

Yep, the feds can't inspect every parcel. But recent experiences show that the gamble isn't worth it. Call me paranoid, but it seems to me that offenders whose shipments get snagged are put on some short of S-list. A couple years ago, a dealer in the UK used to send me items for restoration, and every single shipment of his was received with Fish and Wildlife inspection tape. Fortunately I had informed him in advance of all this that I would not work on any item affected by CITES, permits or no. He must have landed on somebody/s radar screen because several packages in a row, containing all-metal Indian ethnographic weapons, was flagged and checked.

Getting caught trying to circumvent CITES, either on purpose or inadvertently, can have consequences beyond invalidation of provenance. Like confiscation and destruction. In the recent past, the Richard Wagner Jr collection in the US was liquidated, and a noted UK-based auctioneer was selected to handle disposal of this estate. The CITES-affected pieces were to be sold out of their San Francisco saleroom, the rest sent to London. About a dozen ivory hilted daggers were mistakenly shipped in the group destined for the UK. These were seized, the handles removed and destroyed, and the blades returned to the auctioneers for sale.

the tactical / ninja camouflage
 

Back in the 1990s, when CITES enforcement was not what it is now, some dealer colleagues from the UK used to come to US antique arms fairs to buy. As a favor I would handle shipping for them, and on ivory hilts we agreed on the use of automotive spray enamel in gloss or matte black, applied without a primer. It masked the color perfectly and was safely removable with mineral spirits --without a primer it did not adhere all that well, which of course made it vulnerable to a customs inspector with sharp fingernails. But the ruse worked.

I wouldn't have tried it on any surface that included wood, however. And now I wouldn't do it at all, because enforcement is tighter and the penalty, besides a fine, includes confiscation and destruction of the item (see the post I wrote above for a nasty example). The last time I did this was for an English gent who bought a nice ivory horse head shamshir at auction in the US and the seller refused to ship overseas. The blade was a piece of crap so my customer just said to yank and toss it, the hilt was what he was after. I stress the word LAST, I no longer accept any items for restoration that contain any CITES-affected material, not just ivory. It's just not worth it.

Please, fellas -- don't cheat. And keep up on the CITES regs, as re the scope of species involved. It isn't about just ivory, tortoise, rhino and beagle feathers anymore. A friend just reported that a shipment of Oriental weapons sent to him from overseas had one item yanked -- a sword with ray skin covered handle. The inspector demanded that he prove that the species of ray fish that the hilt was covered with was not one of the endangered ones! And keeping in mind that most Japanese swords have ray skin of one species or another under the silk wrapping, you can see where this could possibly lead. And it wasn't too long ago that the Gibson guitar factory was shut down for awhile until the feds verified the source of one lot of African ebony that luthiers use for fingerboards on the necks of instruments.

I recently bought a Co Jang from the US on ebay, which was shipped on the expensive eBay global shipping scheme. Before it left the States it was declared "undeliverable" because it was a weapon. I got my money back but it grieves me that it didn't even go back to the seller, eBay saying they'll dispose of it as they see fit. What is the logic of allowing an item to be sold internationally on your website and then refusing to ship it?

Philip, what you write about the Richard Wagner Jr. collection is very interesting. I have a khanjarli with ivory hilt from the collection, and I have often been wondering why some daggers with ivory were sold in the US and others were sent to the UK to be sold. Now I know why.
In an art magazine I saw pictures of the stripped daggers, and it was quite chocking to see the daggers - good that Richard Wagner never knew about it.


To all others, dont fool with the CITES certificate - if it is needed, get it or you can be in big trouble.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21422

Hope this works
Richard

Richard, thank you for the link - it is chocking, and it is a chock any collector will not forget easily.
I dont understand how an auctionhouse can send daggers like this, to another country whitout the needed papers, or maybe we dont know the whole history, who knows?
In post #121 it seems as if the daggers were stripped in the UK.



Has anyone asked the MET or one of the big auctionhouses what they would do to avoid daggers to be stripped? If not, it might be time to do so.



To get a CITES certificate, the weapon has to be evaluated by a specialist known to the CITES people, and accepted by them as being an expert.
Maybe the CITES people can give you a list of experts living 'near' to where you live.

The recievers name and address are on the document, and only the reciever must get the parcle - the document is valid for half a year.

Here's a guide for museums on the care and documentation, including proper shipping practices, of ivory antiquities: http://www.connectingtocollections.o...int-Slides.pdf

In my discussions with US Fish & Wildlife, importing pre-Act ivory should go smoothly, but there are a few pitfalls. He said that the most common pitfall is pre-export permit validation. For example, if you're importing ivory from the UK to the US, you must have the UK customs authority validate the permit and sign off on the export. If it arrives in the US with all of the proper documentation, etc., but the permit was not validated, then it will be treated as an unpermitted import.

Sounds like a common sense step, but it is frequently missed.

Vilhelmsson, I find your link interesting, but not very helpful, as what the members need is, a way to find the experts who can descripe the weapon/whatever so that the CITES people can/will accept it - and make the certificate.

Jens,

The actual guidelines are very non-specific, but that pdf will point you in the right direction. They need a "qualified appraisal." Each country can interpret that differently. There is no centralized list of "qualified appraisers" in the US. And the US government certainly won't publish a list of qualified appraisers.

I would bet like $100 if you call the Alaska US F&W office and ask about ivory importation, they'd transfer you to someone who would give you the names of some good qualified appraisers.

If you are exporting from or importing to the US, here are the guidelines for what a qualified appraisal is:

An appraisal submitted as documentary evidence of an article’s eligibility under the ESA antique exception must meet the following criteria:

* The person executing the appraisal either has earned an appraisal designation from a recognized professional appraiser organization for demonstrated competency in appraising the type of property being appraised or can demonstrate verifiable education and experience in assessing the type of property being appraised.

* The person executing the appraisal is not the importer, exporter, buyer, recipient or seller of the article; does not benefit from the results of the appraisal (other than for the cost of the appraisal); is not a party to any of the transactions associated with the article (including any person acting as an agent for the transaction); is not an employee of any business that is a party to the transaction; and is not related to the person claiming the exception.

* Facts we will examine in determining the reliability of the appraisal:
1. A description of the article in sufficient detail for a person who is not generally familiar with the type of article to determine that the appraisal is about the article in question.

2. The name and address of the qualified appraiser; or if the appraiser is a partner, an employee, or an independent contractor engaged by a person other than the person claiming the exception, the name and address of the partnership or the person who employs or engages the appraiser.

3. The qualifications of the appraiser who signs the appraisal, including the background, experience, education and any membership in professional appraiser associations.

4. The date on which the article was appraised.

5. The scientific method in detail used to determine the age or species.
Descriptive information on the article including but not limited to: the size of the article; the medium; the artist or culture; approximate date the article was created; and a professional quality image of the article.

6. A detailed history of the article including proof of authenticity.
The facts on which the appraisal was based including analyses of similar works by the artist on or around the creation date.

Thank you for the explanation Vilhelmsson.
It all sounds very complicated, and I do see the problem.
I guess I was lucky to get a certificate, when my dagger from the Wagner collection was transported from the UK to where I live.

One London-based auction house now states in plain English in their descriptions of every ivory-containing lot that they will not accept bids from US-based buyers due to the current American regulations.
I'm glad the world elephant population is breathing in unison'ed relief knowing that.

Hi Dimitry,
good answer, I absolutely agree.
Kurt

Oh, those ellyfunts should be trumpeting for joy!

shipping nowadays is always a most interesting journey..
ex the good ol' U S of A :

DHL took me 4 days to NL ( yep ...I am a Cloggy:)) for $140 USD for a small Ottoman antique 19th C dagger ( and no import duties charged....:D)
value from auction was $100.. actual or real value should be $ 250-300

USPS with their local partner Post.NL again value $100 for a Bosnian dagger from 1860, actual value around 400 - 450, shipping $ 80 .... 4 monnths....with Euro 35 import duties, delivering it together wit a small yacht window ( whose owner was also waiting for 3=4 months on it from a complete different part of Holland) ....

Austrian Post uses Eurodis as intermediate to the Dutch Post.NL and ships for € 18 : 9 times all OK, one time my dagger was lost and on its way back to sender due to incorrect address. The sender made no mistake but all the intermediates put their labels over the original address. Even after contacting all callcenters of 3 involved companies it took 3 months to get my package found an delivered. Terrible... although all other 9 Austrian shipments went OK.

My recent experience :

a book on cold weapons from Bosnia: purchase price 60, DHL ( being the only option) 30....upon arrival ( 3 days !!! Very fast indeed, the same it took me by motorbike or train to Sarajevo...) I had to pay 17 import duties and....18 handling costs....the last 2 amounts did feel like a ripp off

a klewang ( purchase value $ 75, actual 150)from the US again: $ 35 by USPS: 2 weeks and no import duties....

you tell me ... what's going on?

Sometimes I think they are using the donkey express or the Kon-Tiki whilst other times they are performing excellently.

Nevertheless the scare me sh-beep-tless when it takes more than 1 month

As for description of auction houses: they are not sure anymore, so also bone or horn are lots of times described as Citesitems, whilst they come / are made from local oxes in the Balkans...and the only endangered specie is the collector who is been taken for a ride.... sadly. Thumbs up nevertheless yeh all

An interesting tidbit on the BBC ANTIQUES ROADSHOW FAQ page:

Can I bring ivory to Antiques Roadshow?
At the end of 2018, the UK government’s Ivory Bill gained Royal Assent to become law.

Further information on the detail and scope of the legislation can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...vory-bill-2018

Please note that Antiques Roadshow no longer values items of antique elephant ivory.

However, our experts may be able to examine your items and offer guidance about the new legislation.


That takes care of the broad swath of world antiques, from the Viking period chess figures, to middle ages decorative objects, to 19th century musical instruments, to the 20th century jewelry.

I wonder how they feel about fossil ivorys, elephant and mammoth? Many knifemakers in the US use this and fossil walrus, Steller's Sea Cow ribs etc. for knife scales.

I hate it when they make these one-size-fits-all laws.

Hippo ivory is still legal? Just as nice?

Seems hippo is banned too. I can understand the desire to break the market but how many countries will still be a back door market so the killing will still go on.

Stellar sea cow? Haven’t heard about that before. Do those ribs taste good off the BBQ grill too? I love the dual-use concept.

You'd have to go back in time to BBQ one Philip; they're extinct and anyway who wants leftovers that old.
The fossilized material is is gathered by the indigenous peoples of the Bering Sea area along with fossilized Walrus and is used for carvings, knife scales etc.

This bear was carved from a fossilized Walrus jaw.

[QUOTE=Rick;262771]You'd have to go back in time to BBQ one Philip; they're extinct and anyway who wants leftovers that old.
The /QUOTE]

I once read somewhere that Russian paleontologists once dig up a mammoth from the permafrost and there was still that ol’ellyfunt meat still clinging to some bones. They made a broth out of some of the tissue. Don’t recall seeing their reaction to the flavor, would have been interesting if they could salvage enough meat to make at least a couple sibirsky pel’menyi to cook in the soup. Leftovers that old? Compared to some of the food I had during a trip to Gorbyland in 1986 , how bad could that be?