Shipping To US And Abroad

You need to fill out the customs form. I have had a bad experience with a seller on ebay for a set of cufflinks that I ordered. They overstated the value, just in case something happened to the....they wanted to make sure that I was covered.

UPS wanted to charge my $24 in customes fees on and item that I paid $14 for. After debating with UPS and providing proof of the actual cost of the transaction, they completely reversed the fee. They said that they don't charge duty on items less than $20. Although the seller had my best interest in mind, it ended up being a huge headache for me.

My suggestion is to notify in your ebay listing that customs fees may apply and are to be paid by the buyer, and that the actual selling price will be on the customs form.

Thanks. This makes good sense.

I have purchased hundreds of coins from Canada and not once had to pay duty. Some of them are just shipped in regular padded envelopes in the mail. Some have been marked as numismatic materials.

UPS seems to be more problematic though when it comes to cross border shipping than USPA/Canada Post.

Good advice. Thanks everyone. We'll see how it goes. So far I have a couple of coins starting at 99¢ and no bids so far (sigh). So if they end up selling for a paltry amount to someone outside the country, duty fees will not be something they have to worry about. I do have one item that has a higher bid, but only because I put on a minimum starting bid...
Again, thanks.

Selling on ebay auction style, you will find that many buyers wait until close to the deadline before bidding. An item that has only a couple of bids, may get a lot of action within thelast 5-6 hours.

Keep positive, and if you have nice coins people will usually bid on them.

UPS from canada to the usa there is no customs charges for anything under $200. in reverse from the USA to canada UPS will ding you $25-$40 (learned that the hard way and the item ending up being more expensive that if I had bought it locally). as far as I know UPS and fedex will NOT insure coins.

I've found Canada Post to be cheaper, plus insurable and trackable. might take a few extra days compared to courier but I have yet to be charged any fees (tax or handling etc).

when I fill out the customs forms I usually describe the item as 'collectable token', just seems to be a little less tempting for theft than COIN writen in big bold letters. if ever shipping loose coins in bulk wrap them up really tightly so they dont gingle around, again, no need to attrack attention.

ebay, like others have said, most of the action is in the last few minutes (for people are filtering "ending soonest" as their search criteria and trying to snipe something). I have also had items that I didnt want to sell too cheap and started the bids at a (fair) mid value price and got no bids. re-listed at 99 cents starting and attracted a lot of attention. key is to get the most people looking at it as you can. a lot of people also filter 'cheapest first' and might not even get to your listing if you are at $25 and there are 1,000 auctions below your starting bid. you can always add a 'buy it now price' and still start at 99 cents (i believe the buy it now option turns off after someone bids the first bid)

good luck

Wow. This has been a good education for me. I appreciate the advice. I suppose it is an auction, and like any auction you hope some billionaire has his eye on your item and is willing to pay anything to get it. And then again, maybe not.

I will continue to experiment. I haver some items at 99 and others with a minimum, and will see what happens. I'm really not in it to make a big business out of this, but rather just get something back so I can use the money to buy other things I've developed an interest in. And try not to take things too seriously. After all some of these coins I didn't even know I had...