FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Antonio Alcaide]

[Montanpark]

Hi Antonio,
interesting and certainly a continuing and developing topic .. here in germany the postal fees have changed again (they do all 3 months at least as my feeling is ;-) ). In Europe, from germany no customs (except Switzerland, which seems to be an island of high postal fees in central Europe cause of being NOT in the EC, shipping to Switzerland is like to ship to Turkey or Russia etc.)) and it is possible to send registered mail for a decent fee:
to 500 g registered is 5.45 Euro, up to 1 kg 8.05 Euro and up to 2 kg is 16.05 Euro, larger parcels with DHL 17 Euro. Overseas is highly dependant on the weight. More than 2 kg is a hell expensive. Customs are different, if you declare specimens as rock samples for study purpose without commercial value -> usually no problem. Receiving minerals from lets say the US with declared value > 17.50 $ or the like urges me to drive to the customs office (30 km), pay customs fee AND VAT. So if you want to exchange minerals etc .. just write the right thing on customs declaration ;-) ...
In germany, postage is quite highly priced compared to the US for instance. But up to now, DHL and Deutsche Post did not mess up too much ...
BTW your parcel is underway ;-)

In general, i only use registered mail .. the recipient has to sign on receipt. It does not include insurance (except a very basic one for 35 Euro value). Insured parcels to overseas are really expensive (AFAIR 54 Euro). Registered has always done well and if someone wants insured for higher priced items he/she has to deal with the high prices unfortunately.

Cheers
Roger

[Jason]

A few things I might add...Yes, I do think the shipping in the USA is excellent. Shipped thousands of items and never had any issues in the US(thanks British empire:). One country that seems to pop up with my peers and cohorts who deal gems and minerals is Italy. I know a number of dealers that won't ship to Italy. i used to be one of them but take my chances on cheaper items and just not deal or ship to anyone if the stone or spec. is above a certain price. Not sure if it's theft or customs of what have you but many a good specimen and stone has been "lost" when shipped to Italy. It's not one or two things but numerous from many different dealers and friends and not just minerals either. When cruising one of the chat forums on ebay..the "seller central" a number of the sellers had issues with shipping there that sold many different types of items. Any ideas or thoughts?

Another quick point i would like to add...I sell quite a few items on ebay. Many go overseas. Only had one problem one time about 3 months ago. Sent some gemstones to a regular in France. 28 days later he contacts me and says he hasn't gotten them yet. So i call ebay and explain it to them....guess what? If the stones don't show I take the hit. Okay not to big a deal I understand that. Well, when you ship overseas ebay and paypal require you to ship Priority Mail International(USPS). The envelope is like $13.90 and a box is like $26.90 give or take. They require it so they have a record of it I guess but here is the catch..there is no tracking once it leaves the US. No proof shows it was delivered to whichever country you ship it to or to the person in that country. The cheapest and only way to ship per ebay and paypal is Global Express which starts at $45..starts for an envelope. As you know many an item on ebay doesn't sell for that much or you list small cheap items so to really be cocvered for protection as a seller on ebay when shipping is to use the Global Express. I don't know to many buyers who would pay me $9 for a rutile crystal and then $45 on top. There is no protection when shipping international unless using USPS Global Express. I have shipped tons of items using the recommended Priority International as do almost all ebay sellers but what they don't know is any buyer can claim there item wasn't recieved and you get stuck with it even though you did everything by the ebay/paypal book. Luckily my buyer was a regular and was cool and the stones did show up a few days later but i learned a couple things from that ordeal. Any FMF or person who reads this and is in another couyntry than the US, they can buy something from ebay and when it gets there claim it never came, keep the item, and get your money back...easy as that. In side the US, all items shipped have Delivery Confirmation so all is good but once outside the US it's anyones guess. You either take a chance, which is all good since most folks are honest, or you have them pay out the wazoo for tracking.

Soory went on for awhile on that but really irked me to find that out a few months ago after all this time selling on ebay or through paypal.

[keldjarn]

[parfaitelumiere]

I live in France,and use to buy minerals from USA,but sometimes from China,Pakistan or Asia.
Burma has good service,fees are reasonnable,and there is a tracking number,and we have to sign(seems the seller sends as a letter)
USA is really good,First Class mail is just perfect.
From Australia,what I hae seen is time it take to come to France,really long,and price is quite 2 times higher than USA.
Japanese posts have good service and reasonnable price.
The worse for me is here in France,often broken,expensive,and packet must have special size,only problems...

The really ,really worst is just EMS shipping.
First:it's expensive
Second:when it comes to France,packet is always stopped for custom fees,even the items doesn't need custom(collectible or artwork)
Why?
Because in France,private societies have abilities to collect custom fees,and they earn money,so they have interest to make us pay custom fees
We have no choice,here EMS goes to Chronopost,the worst french company,stolen or broken items,expensive additionnal fees,and if you are not home,lots of problems to obtain your packet,you have to call a hotline,and wait...
Now I simply do not accept EMS shipping

Just one thing I would add:

Chronopost told me it's the seller to write correctly the kind of item to permit not to pay custom fees...
What he has to write?someone knows?

[Antonio Alcaide]