Hi Stokie - You and the other overseas members of ETS might want to check out candlepowerforums.com. Lots of great info, and a lot of members of ETS are also active on CPF. One of the members of CPF, going by the name ksbman, generously forwards orders to overseas members of the group. Go to the CPF site, then the buy/sell/trade section (B/S/T Lights), and the first thread listed is "Free International Forwarding." If you register on CPF, it should be easy to contact ksbman and work out the details (CPF uses the same type of software as ETS, with the same mail function).
He's been doing this for a while, and I've seen nothing but pleased responses from the folks he's done this for. Countycomm is a frequently mentioned vendor on CPF, too, and I think that would probably be your easiest solution.
Dave

Luca

I'm right behind you, when do you want my shopping list?

Dave T

I have signed up with CPF recently for other reasons than this. I didn't know that there was someone willing to do this.

Luca if you're not a member of CPF I could contact the guy Dave T mentioned to see if he's willing to help us Euro's out.

Any other europeans willing to join in?

Luca:

While on this side of the water, it is highly unlikely that anyone will get into trouble for doing that, what are the chances that someone from this side of the water that travels abroad often might be charged with violating your laws? It seems that in their zeal to control people, more governments the world over seem to be making arrests for other governments.

A perfect example was on the news tonight where they arrested Bobby Fisher in Japan on a US warrant for playing chess in Yugoslavia during the Balkan fiasco. Shipping arms, aiding the enemy, dealing in secrets, I would be willing to see him pay for those actions, but for crying out loud, he was playing chess.

I do some dealing from Italy, and the shipments have to be small not only in package size but also in value in order to save money on all the charges Europeons have to suffer from their governments.

If you can get a group of people to help forward the things you need, here is a little tip (Which is legal here.). Get your orders together for the group of you in Europe, and have one of the volunteers in the USA ship to just one of your group, and someone else in the USA to ship to another, and so on. That way it is much more believable that you have a friend that is sending you gifts. Unlike my situation from Italy where my packages are broken down into smaller lots, your situation might be better served if you had large packages coming infrequently during special Europeon holidays, your birthday, your patron Saints day, and other things like that so if it is ever questioned, you will have a reasonable response.

Good luck!

Bountyhunter

http://www.countrystore.nl/ sells 15 meter pieces of 550 paracord. They ship to other EU country too, but i recoment to sent a mail to them first.

www.tadgear.com ships internationally.

I thought 550 has 7 inner strands???

Hi Bountyhunter,
Hi all

Thanks for the tip, I was thinking of keeping it a small and very now and then thing. I don't think one could get in large trouble in the EU doing this. There could be fines of course, but seriously, financial "crimes" are punished very mildly over here. And I doubt whether they'd make a case out of some guy sending some stuff as a gift while it's worth a lot more. Customs, already understaffed as they are, have better things to do like investigating large scale drug smuggling and smuggling of illegal cigarettes.

Your idea of having a group of people sending to individuals on the other side is a good one, it's cheaper. On the downside, you'd have to find a group of people instead of just one individual. I myself was thinking of sending over 1 shipment to 1 person within the EU. Once in there, everything can travel free and relatively cheap to others. And hey, our postal services want to make a buck too.. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

BTW do you mean you are importing things from Italy, or sending things into Italy? Does the US also have these harsh import restrictions?

Luca

Hi all,

Course I know CPF, thats how I got here... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Let's get in touch with this ksbman!

BTW found some BCB 'paracord' today. It looks quite real and claims 250 kg/550lbs of breaking strength. Only thing is it has six inner white braided strands instead of seven. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> (just dissected it.) The outer weave is olive green. They sell packs of 15m. Anybody know whether this is good stuff? You can check it out over here: [img]http://www.bcbin.com/store/cat_military.asp?idproduct=38&idCategory=19[/img]

Stokie, if you get in touch with this guy, please let me know. We'll see if it's interesting to buy some goods together. Maybe he could be of service for more of us. We'll work sth out. When you hear from him, please send me a private message.

Thanks!

Luca

Luca,

I'm traveling to Puerto Rico, perhaps I'll be able to get some 100 foot (30 Meter) original! 550 paracord from Contycomm and take it with me back to the Netherlands, I don't know about postage to Puerto Rico but USPS considers it an US inland"shipment so it can't be much more then regular US mail.
Countycomm sells te paracord in different colors like Black, OD, Desert Brown, White and even Orange.

Best Scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera

Luca:

I may not have been clear on my last post. What I am saying is have your EU group get an order together and have someone over here ship everything to just one of you, and that person then distributes it to everyone who ordered something. The next time your EU group puts together an order, have the volunteer from the USA ship everything to a different member of your EU group and that person would then distribute to everyone that ordered something; and so on, and so on. In this manner, you don't have one person in the EU group always receiving packages and always having to send them out to members of the EU group. If you have 7 people in the EU group, the 7 of you would all be contacted when any 1 of you wants to order something. The other 6 could add to the order or pass on that order. The order gets shipped to 1 of the 7 in a rotating order on who takes the shipment each time. That way, if you have 7 orders in one month, they are not all coming to the same address, and none of you in the group is excessively burdened by being the only one having to reship to all the participants in the EU group.

I import Italian stiletto knives with an accessary spring kit. It is against USA law to import switchblade knives (Stupid facist law.) into the United States. I have found a supplier (After about 12 years of searching.) who makes the style & QUALITY of knives I have been looking for. The knives are sent to me with the handle portion assembled and with a plastic comb attached to the handle by an unpeened compression style pivot pin. The bayonet style blades are shipped seperately as are the blade springs and spring retaining pins.

When the knives reach me, I knock out the comb pivot pin, remove and throw away the plastic comb, insert the blade, insert the blade pivot pin and peen the pin on an anvil to hold the blade and bolsters in place. I take the springs and their pivot pins out of the cheap plastic bag that they come in and encase them in heavy 2" wide shipping tape. I put them in shipping tape for two reasons, one is so that some dummy inspecting the knife does not try to put the spring in the knife, "just to see if it works" and thereby create a switchblade while the ownership of the knife is still mine, and the other reason is because the parts are easily lost and the cheap bag they come in is not safe for storing the parts until I sell them.

The biggest factor in the legality of the knives I import is that the blades have a fingernail groove in them, and therefore can be opened like any folding knife which is what I sell them as. The spring kit is included, and once the person buys them, what they do with them is not my concern. Everything is legal under USA law and the laws of the State of Wisconsin.

Two things have changed since I started doing this and one is I sell only to 21 year old and older individuals, whereas I used to sell to 18 year old and older individuals. I do it this way now in order to avoid having anyone trying to entrap me on a small technicality about the 4" blade length. The other thing is that I have raised my prices from $45.00 on the black & white handled knives and $60.00 on the stag handled ones to $50.00 & $65.00 respectively. They sell the DIY 9" knives at the SKM site for $60.00 & $80.00 for the same knives, and SKM charges $20.00+ shipping charge for one knife sent to the USA.

Because I jump through all the legal hoops properly, I advertise in the police stations and Federal government facilities and have not encountered any problems thus far. Of course with all the anal explosive legislators we have in the states, one of these days even this source may be eliminated.

Good luck!

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />