doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cost of importing one gun from Holts

I guess I'm still not clear on everything. If the cost of sending it to the US is $75 freight. . .where do all these other charges come from? Packing and handling? Paperwork? There should be none for a pre 1898 gun - you could put it in your suitcase. Are the charges mostly on the UK side?

I'm particularly stumped by the cost for the case. I bought a case on a UK eBay site and the UPS shipping charge was $20 or thereabouts.

There is a reason why when San Francisco wanted to put in one public toilet and a company said they'd do it for free, the cost for the taxpayer was still going to be $1.5 million - license fees, environmental studies, engineering feasibility, traffic use analysis, cost-benefit, permits for public buildings, side walk obstruction analysis,. . . . We built the Hoover Dam in 1931-36 in 5 years. Try doing that today.

The 75$ is domestic shipping, shipping the crates usually costs me quite a few thousand dollars, I have paid in excess of 10K on just shipping and collection from the UK to Denver. Then the crates are trucked to me, another grand or so. Broker fees on both sides, somebody has to do the paperwork, even antiques require documentation and Customs clearance which require a broker on commercial shipments.

With all your time in the military, can you believe the costs are related to red tape?

Nothing is easier these days. Last year I had months and months of delays, paperwork, funds being held up due to new anti terrorist and money laundering laws, shipments stopped by US Customs for extensive deep in inspections which they charge me for.

We all want a simpler way of doing business, everybody except the Governments.

Ted, something like this?

75 dollars is the shipping from EP Intl in Arlington to you. My charges for one gun this week were about $460 on the UK side for collection, export paperwork and air freight. About $300 on the US side for import duty, import tariffs, required importer engraving, shipping in the US and insurance.

So since I picked up....it should have been $75 cheaper? Ah...I'll talk to Peter about that. That's a couple of visits to McDonald's these days.

Admittedly I was trying to sneak a gun into the house and Peter was trying to be complicit.

Muchos chancho’s:




Best,
Ted

Importing guns is a business. They charge what they want and hope the market bears the fees. If not they won’t last long. But you also have to make money, a profit and have an extra reserve because I am certain there are unexpected, difficult to pass along cost. Some importers have a flat fee schedule, some are cost plus a service fee and some have sliding scales where the more you import the lower the average cost per gun. I use a sliding fee importer because I have imported lots of 5-20 guns at a time when the cost per gun drops as the group size increases.

Can we hand carry an antique gun from the auction house to the London airport and carry it to the USA without any licensing or fees beyond import duty?

That was my question too. I did it once from Pakistan.

ATF Regulation:
If the firearm you intend to import is an antique firearm and was manufactured in or before 1898, you or an FFL do not have to submit an ATF Form 6 to ATF; however, you must be able to prove to CBP that it was manufactured during that period. If you ship the antique firearm, be sure the package includes the required documentation. CBP will accept a certificate of authenticity or bill of sale with the year the antique firearm was manufactured as proof of age. If the firearm was manufactured after 1898, an FFL must submit the ATF Form 6 to ATF for authorization to import the firearm. If the antique firearm is at least 100 years old or more and you can provide proof of age, the firearm will be eligible for duty-free treatment under the antique provision in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule.

However, getting out of UK seems to be the problem:

As far as the process of shipping from the United Kingdom, there is no legal way to ship a weapon out of the United Kingdom without using a licensed shipping agent.

United Kingdom rules and regulation for firearms require a number of documents and require that the shipping agent to complete prior to the weapon being shipped to the United States.

Seems there are some really low prices on English and continental SxS right now!