Coin shipments from Germany to USA?

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by DonnaML, Jan 5, 2021.

  1. Pellinore

    Pellinore Well-Known Member

    Postal services are having big problems these days, and not only because of Covid. Three months from the USA to the Netherlands happened twice, last year. Sending parcels to France (from the Netherlands) is asking for trouble: they are sent back often for no reason at all. The USA is having internal trouble, too, things are very slow, because of personnel cutbacks, I was told. Germany is - in my experience - very trustworthy. Spain as difficult as France.

    However, in a year, no international parcels have been lost altogether. Fedex and DHL are fast, but delivering parcels is often sloppy: large parcels with books outside in the rain happened twice in 2020 (yes, Fedex and DHL).
     
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  3. Mat

    Mat Ancient Coincoholic

    Well my autograph was shipped via Deutsche Post so we'll see how well this works out.

    Maybe it will arrive on my birthday in May.:confused:
     
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  4. tommyc03

    tommyc03 Senior Member

    @DonnaML You are right in that there should be a disclaimer of some sort on a web site about this. But a lot of sites are designed by outside web designers and also managed by them. It's easy enough, once designed to simply keep adding coins and descriptions but not so easy to change other items like policy or adding items like disclaimers as that requires html use which the designer must use. If someone designed their own site they would be able to do this. So, I guess it boils down to weather or not the owner is just lazy and thinks this is unimportant. It does add costs to have a third party to do it.
     
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  5. thejewk

    thejewk Well-Known Member

    @tommyc03 Surely being a marketplace website managed by a company who give you a store front would mean that this sort of functionality is built in, or at least VCoins themselves offer a quick service for editing information?

    If not, it'd have to be a pretty rubbish service to be paying for on a monthly basis.
     
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  6. tommyc03

    tommyc03 Senior Member

    But of course and it was only a thought. I've never done buisness outside of the U.S. with any of these companies.
     
  7. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    I try to avoid France, Italy and Spain. Not because of the dealers, but because of bureaucracy.
    CNG has always been among the most trustworthy companies I’ve ever dealt with, but it took 11 weeks to get a coin from there in June 2020.
    Somehow Savoca seems to be able to deliver a coin before you’ve even decided to buy it. There must be some black magic going on there. Impressive that LAC was able to get a coin to NYC in 2 days too.

    Donna, is it possible that it was the insurance of the dealer that was the problem in this case, not your insurance?
     
  8. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    Anything's possible; they didn't explain. And I really don't feel like emailing them to try to find out, or try to talk them into changing their minds at this point. That would just be a recipe for my getting aggravated more, which I don't need right now. There'll be another coin I want soon enough, even if it's not that one.
     
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  9. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    Yes. There’s always another coin. Numismatics really isn’t something to get aggravated over.
     
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  10. rrdenarius

    rrdenarius non omnibus dormio Supporter

    I won a lot of cast bronze bars from Gorny & Mosch on 11/19. The bars arrived on 12/10.
    DSCN4825.JPG
     
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  11. dltsrq

    dltsrq Grumpy Old Man

    If an uninsured item is lost, the buyer is refunded by PayPal but the refund comes out of the seller's pocket.
     
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  12. robinjojo

    robinjojo Well-Known Member

    Odd - I just ordered a coin from Dr. Busso Peus NACHF yesterday and received a DHL notice today with a tracking number. Now given the rampaging pandemic I really don't expect this coin arriving any time soon.

    I just received a coin from Israel that was supposed to be delivered December 2, 2020 (see below). I am still waiting for my Roma lots from the last auction. The mail delivery systems are under stress, so I am just glad that the orders eventually arrive.

    D-Camera Diocletian Abdication follis post refrom,officina Z 308 AD, Antioch 10.5 g  01-05-21.jpg
     
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  13. Gallienus

    Gallienus coinsandhistory.com

    Well I don't know, I think you should get these all slabbed. That would also deter further corrosion.

    Late in 2020 I received a groat or something I bought at an auction in Poland.

    Also late Nov/early Dec 2020 I got my Germanic aureus with Sleipnir from Leu Numismatik in Switzerland. Both these items arrived as they usually do without problems.

    I think it's some particular countries that have problems mailing to the US. If it's an item you really want perhaps you could ask the dealer to hold it for a while?
     
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  14. scottishmoney

    scottishmoney Buh bye

    I buy from Great Britain and Ireland on a regular basis, it has gotten a lot more difficult - Irish packages are particularly challenging because they sit forever in NY customs. For some reason British parcels are quicker through customs.
     
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  15. Pellinore

    Pellinore Well-Known Member

    Ah, the Aurum Barbarorum Collection from Leu Numismatics. THAT was an interesting collection. They were too much for me. I coveted this one from the first auction, but missed out.

    Aurum Barbariorum I auction, nr. 816.jpg
     
  16. otlichnik

    otlichnik Well-Known Member

    Since the pandemic started I have received mailed items from: US, UK, Sweden, Germany, Serbia, PRC and Singapore - all shipped to me in Canada.

    Post office services have been hit and miss, but in a seemingly random fashion.

    My worst experience was a shipment from LA, California. It sat for 45 days is a post office in LA 5 km away from where the seller mailed it. Then took another 20 days to reach me. The tracking system showed nothing until the day it left the LA post office so it was totally off-radar for almost 7 weeks. Still no Saturnalia present for me either. But some coins and books from Frank Robinson arrived in under a week!

    Packages from UK and Sweden were not tracked by Canada post. UK and Sweden post tracked them until they left those countries. Canada post tracking never tracked them and said they didn't exist, but then they showed up at my door. Quite quickly for the UK cases.

    Packages from PRC and Singapore were very slow, but were tracked in great detail. Both sat untouched at Canadian airports for 14 days after they arrived before they went to Canada Customs. Though I see no proof online, it seems like a clear policy of quarantining the package for two weeks before touching it. In those cases the item went from Customs to me very quickly.

    Envelopes definitely ship faster than packages.

    I try to avoid courier companies these days for the reasons someone else mentioned. They seem to go out of their way to attract customs charges. When I used to use them, an item sent by mail with a value of $50 would fly through customs with no fees, but an items shipped by courier with a value of $25 would get hit with fees.

    SC
     
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  17. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    Perhaps that's an issue unique to Canada. I've never been charged a penny in customs fees for any coin shipped to me from outside the USA, whether from Canada or from Europe (including the UK, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany). Regardless of who ships it, and I've had coins sent to me by regular international mail as well as DHL Express, Federal Express, and UPS Express. So at least that's one problem I've never had to worry about!
     
  18. FitzNigel

    FitzNigel Medievalist

    I ordered something at the end of October from Germany - I thought shipped via DHL, but I think it got passed off to Deutsche post. Not sure how to interpret are what happened, but after getting a new tracking number a week in, I found the package sitting in Frankfurt where it has been ever since. The tracking number no longer works. So, I am now very hesitant to order from Germany after this (but never had a problem before).
    Hearing others have gotten their items after 3 months gives me a little hope, but not much...
     
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  19. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I know DHL is a German company, and I think I might have read somewhere that it's affiliated in some way with Deutsche Post. I had the same problem the one time a German dealer agreed to ship me something via DHL Express -- it sat it Frankfurt for a long time, and when it finally got to the USA it was just handed over to the USPS. I eventually got it after more than two months. So maybe German dealers don't understand the difference between DHL "Express" and regular mail.
     
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  20. FitzNigel

    FitzNigel Medievalist

    Thanks for the clarification Donna!
     
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  21. panzerman

    panzerman Well-Known Member

    It seems astounding, you order some item thru Amazon/ it arrives at your door in 2/3days max. Amazon pays their people, 1/4 of a postal worker/ yet 4x better service.;)
     
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