Are there any issues importing Wooden War Clubs from the U.K.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by drac2k

As of late, I have been looking at several auctions in the U.K. that have war clubs (Fijian, Samoan,etc.), featured and I had thought of possibly bidding on them. I certainly would not bid on any sword or knife that had a bone or ivory component as I am sure that this would cause instant Customs confiscation. I just want to make sure that there aren't any issues with the authorities in regards to rare or exotic woods(i.e. Truffula Tree wood from Lorax), or possible bug infestation problems from old wormholes.
If anyone has any experience with the importation of these items I would appreciate knowing how they fared.

The whole issue of Border Customs behavior is so unpredictable. When importing a lot of stuff during my move to Australia, I encountered widely different interpretations of the rules by different Australian Border Force agents. One guy, a collector of Japanese nihonto, wanted to chat for 30 minutes about collecting before letting me through with a bunch of items, some of which would be characterized as daggers and would have been confiscated by other officers whereupon I would have had to go through a bunch of paperwork to get them back.

Wooden objects were not a problem after inspection. As long as they were "old" and not from prohibited species or obviously infested, they sailed through without any concern. Anything will a collection number on it was barely looked at! If something looks old, is polished or well handled, and shows no evidence of insect damage, you should be fine.

Ian.

[drac2k]

Thanks, gentleman, it appears that importation is still a game of chance.

[thinreadline]

as a botanist with a PhD relating to trees and years of experience in the tropics , I can attest to the enormous difficulty in identifying small pieces of 'old' wood in order to establish what species it is . I would have thought that unless you tell the customs / border officials what it is made of , they would have no idea whatsoever and little means of finding out in reality. That of course wont stop these unpredictable creatures confiscating your property on some pretext !

[Ian]

Originally Posted by thinreadline

... I would have thought that unless you tell the customs / border officials what it is made of , they would have no idea whatsoever and little means of finding out in reality. That of course wont stop these unpredictable creatures confiscating your property on some pretext !

Well put TRL! Drac, just declare it and don't give them any further data. The more you say, the more they have to be concerned about. "I don't know" is a perfectly truthful answer to many customs inspectors' questions regarding materials used in weapons. I have used "I don't know" effectively when asked about the age of an item, for example, which puts it back on them to demonstrate if something is not okay to import or export. The one exception is common materials (e.g., ivory, other parts of protected species such as skins) covered by CITES. You should know if something contains these and answer truthfully if asked. There are serious penalties in many places for knowingly providing false or misleading information.

Ian.