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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 4862528, member: 110350&quot;]I have had no problems during the pandemic receiving coins from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Belgium, each time sent by DHL Express or Federal Express for a charge between $20 and $30 more than regular shipping. Which I&#039;ve been happy to pay for the faster service, as well as the absence of concern regarding the coin being held up for weeks in the US Postal Service (or in Customs) after arrival in the USA.</p><p><br /></p><p>The one exception is Germany.&nbsp; The one time I bought a coin during the pandemic from a German dealer (Münzhandlung Ritter in Düsseldorf via MA-Shops, at the end of June), the experience was absolutely wretched.&nbsp; First, I was told that the German postal service simply does not ship to the USA in the current situation, so if I bought the coin I would have to wait an unknown number of months until it could be shipped.&nbsp; I was also told that the charge for DHL&nbsp; Premium Package Service -- the only available DHL service to the USA during the pandemic -- was $50(!), or almost $40 more than regular international shipping.&nbsp; But I wanted the coin, so I stupidly agreed.&nbsp; What I didn&#039;t realize is that &quot;DHL Premium Package Service&quot; has nothing to do with DHL Express, and that DHL itself is a German company that is simply a division of Deutsche Post.&nbsp; So there was nothing &quot;express&quot; about the shipment.&nbsp; It took more than a week for the package to leave Germany, and once it arrived in the USA, instead of delivering it directly to me (as DHL Express does, regardless of the country of origin), DHL simply handed the package over to the US Postal Service, where it sat for more than a month with no further tracking updates.&nbsp; The package was finally delivered about a week after I submitted a missing mail form to the USPS (a &quot;trick&quot; that has worked each of the three times I&#039;ve tried it for packages seemingly frozen in the US postal system).</p><p><br /></p><p>The bottom line is that I&#039;m staying far away from German dealers until this situation changes.&nbsp; Which effectively rules out more than half the dealers on MA-Shops, which seems to be a primarily German enterprise.</p><p><br /></p><p>I did just order a coin from Sweden to be sent by DHL Express, so I&#039;ll see how that works.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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