Shiiping a sight to Canada|General Discussions & Questions|Forum|Winchester Collector

I don’t know, but Henry Mero sent me a Henry sight that never arrived.

I purchased a Winchester graduated peep sight through eBay from a Canadian seller.  No problems, and sight came via Canada post.  Not sure about going the other direction.

Bob; I sent that Henry sight to Chuck in a small envelope style container, regular mail, thinking I would save a few bucks shipping, won’t do that again. I’ve shipped and received many firearms and acc’s to and from the U.S. and England without any issues. I use Canada post Priority International or Fed-Ex Express International. For Your sights, pack them well in a much larger than needed box, label the outside “ANTIQUE SPORTING GOODS”, enclose a description of the goods and a copy of the bill of sale for Canada Customs, as the buyer will have to pay sales tax on the value of His purchase.

There’s no law against shipping antique sights internationally.   I ship my holsters, cartridge belts and other leather gear all over the world. I send everything via USPS Priority Mail, fully insured.  Check out the  USPS web site or take it to your  local  post  office.   In 43 years, I’ve never had a package not arrive at it’s destination. 

Everything I ship in the continental US or internationally, is insured for the full amount.  I do not know if there is a cutoff on the value you can insure the package for.  Many of my packages are insure for $1000 to $1500 and have never had an issue.  I would never send anything of value anywhere without insurance, under the assumption that it might get stolen in bulk mailing.  A package can disappear anywhere.  If Bob sends those sights without insurance and they disappear, he’s out the sights and the money and his customer is out the sights.  Not a position I’d want to be in.

I recall many shippers allow the purchase of a large amount of insurance.  For those trading in the vintage/antique/collectables area, I think a false sense of security is created.  I was thinking about this last night.  I was looking at a Lyman sight for a Ross rifle.  It was $3000 – don’t interpret this to mean I was seriously looking at the sight.  Anyway, my advice is don’t assume if you purchase $3000 in insurance that your item is insured for $3000.  You will probably have to prove it is worth that amount.  The fact that you paid that much for it does not constitute proof.  For many insured items, establishing value can be easy.  That’s because the majority of insured items are new.  If you just bought a brand new $3000 rifle, you can readily get a current replacement price from Cabelas etc. and you’re set.  “Replacement cost” is the way the insurer’s like to work.  Here’s the Lyman sight I was looking at – tell me how I could establish replacement cost or value?  Particularly when descriptors like, “experimental” are used:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185051607302?hash=item2b15ef7106:g:BsYAAOSwNAhhQafT

Is this sight worth $3000?  I don’t think so – I think it is worth far less and the seller (like a lot of internet sellers) is probably fishing.  If one person with more brains than money hits the buy-it-now, does that make the sight worth it?  I do understand the dilemma insurers are in when it comes to our kind of items.

A final thought – when it comes to an insurance claim, having a relatively current professional appraisal can be very helpful.  Lacking that, quality photos could be a helpful and at least they don’t cost anything.  

I tend to keep it simple I just pay the extra for the fastest , trackable service available, and I don’t trust insurance companies so I don’t bother. I believe the maximum insurable amount , In Canada anyways is $2000.00. Documents on the outside in an envelope marked “Attention Customs” and I wouldn’t fib about what’s inside. Use a box no smaller than a tissue box ,Get Your tracking # and keep an eye on where it is, You won’t have any problems.

Yeah you never know about Customs holding up something!

Once my father had ordered some unusual Italian ceramic tiles when building his house, which at the time was hard to come by tile, but now with the internet you can get practically anything. The crate of tile was held up at customs for over a month because some SNAILS were found on the outside of the wood crate packaging. It wouldn’t pass through customs until the snails were determined whether or not to be an invasive species. Needles to say it took a while to get his package. He actually had ordered the tile just after the slab foundation was pored. The house was nearly completely finished when he finally got the tile in. They had something similar happen with the front door. It was a special order wood door with sidelights. When it arrived the door frame with side lights arrived, but the center door was merely a door blank. As the actual door was still being made, it got delayed and the house had a door blank for a front door for a month.

Sincerely,

Maverick