Shipping Woes

[werecow]

Ah, that explains the price difference.

I've had three bad shipping experiences. Two of them were customs issues. The only time anything was returned to sender was from Spain with Correos. The sender sent it to me again with Seur (but insisted that we split the costs for this second shipping) without problems.

The other times were a very long transit on a kindjal / qama from Brazil followed by me being charged twice the import fees (I never received a refund for this in spite of repeated attempts), and the worst one was a saif I bought from the UK right after brexit that was stuck in customs for two months and came to me bent at a 20 degree angle about halfway through the blade and with some more bends in the blade. It's still got a pretty big wobble in it but I don't want to risk more damage to it. Pics from after I bent it back. Luckily it was not the highest quality or most expensive piece.

[SteveL]

Originally Posted by werecow

Ah, that explains the price difference.

I've had three bad shipping experiences. Two of them were customs issues. The only time anything was returned to sender was from Spain with Correos. The sender sent it to me again with Seur (but insisted that we split the costs for this second shipping) without problems.

The other times were a very long transit on a kindjal / qama from Brazil followed by me being charged twice the import fees (I never received a refund for this in spite of repeated attempts), and the worst one was a saif I bought from the UK right after brexit that was stuck in customs for two months and came to me bent at a 20 degree angle about halfway through the blade and with some more bends in the blade. It's still got a pretty big wobble in it but I don't want to risk more damage to it. Pics from after I bent it back. Luckily it was not the highest quality or most expensive piece.

That's too bad on the Saif. Was it insured?

I have actually had good luck with Correos.

I tell the seller to add "objeto artesanal decorativo"
to the customs declaration and in three Correos shipments from Madrid -- no problem. Of course these are all daggers not swords. But they are truly decorations in my mind and not weaponry.

[werecow]

Originally Posted by SteveL

That's too bad on the Saif. Was it insured?

I have actually had good luck with Correos.

I've shipped two other swords with Correos without difficulty. I guess the third time was the charm.

As for the saif, I stupidly forgot to take a picture when it was still obviously bent and did not follow up on it. It is kind of a rough around the edges example anyway so it doesn't bother me too much. I'll probably post some better pictures of it on here sometime in the future to ask for opinions on where it came from.