Buying Stuff From Europe ??

I've bought several diecast vehicles from the UK, one from a company named Dave Allen (I checked, no relation to the Dave Allen on our forum).  Never had a problem.  The shipping takes about ten days on average, but okay . . . .

Also ordered a lot of diecast from "ModelCarUSA" which markets via Amazon.  It's a place in Germany that ships your stuff through a re-distributon center in Florida for mailing to your address.  Again, good results but it takes about two weeks.  Finally a few cars from a place in Poland that calls tself "Amer Hobby" - also selling via Amazon.  They take only about a week.

All of these retailers have been competitively (or better) priced although the reason I bought was selection (they had the cars/trucks I was searching for) not price, and delivered what I order, in good condition, but all took a week to two weeks for the stuff to arrive. the only caveat - check the shipping.  I canceled one order for a $28 die-cast car when I saw that the shipping was going to be $75.  shipping from overseas does not have to be that expensive.

I am not in the US, but I have purchased model trains from Japan for about seven years and have friends in the US who have done the same for as long or longer.

You should be exempt from VAT.

You may want to take currency exchange into consideration unless the vendor is selling in US dollars.

Generally I understand there are no import duties to US.  However, some carriers like and Fedex are known to charge brokerage fees for importing a parcel.  This is generally regarded as a scam and this has also happened to my friends in the US.

There is more info on internet purchases on the CBP.gov web page.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/tra...ternet_purchases.xml

i would venture that there will not be anything due in terms of duty, I have bought goods from the UK a number of times and never been charged anything in terms of duties. As a rule duties are a small percentage of the shipment, so nothing to worry about.

VAT will be deducted from the sale by the seller.

Shipping via Royal Mail is more expensive than US Mail, about double, takes roughly a week to ten days and will arrive with your regular mail. 

Never had an issue buying from EUR or Asia. No fees or customs. And from the UK no VAT so price is lower than catalog most times.

You guys should not pay VAT as your items are being exported outside the EU.

 Prices for most model train items include VAT. So contact seller before hand to make sure the VAT is not paid. Car parts tend to be priced with out VAT so make sure they don't add it on out of habit!

Wish the reverse was true when importing stuff from the US, you don't pay the local sales tax though. Toy  trains do not have import duty, only VAT at the UK end.

Yep seller here will not be interested in customs charges your end and the reverse is true!

People in the States are sometimes scared of filling out the customs form for shipping to the UK. No need.

Best quote from one of the lads on this forum (I can't remember his name) was "HMRC can't touch you in the US. Last time they were here we had a misunderstanding 

over some tea! And we asked them to leave."

i would go with FedEx or Royal Mail for shipping. UPS add loads of extra handling charges on import at least here in the UK. So much so that one US DeLorean car parts supplier was virtually blacklisted here in the UK, as they insisted on only using them. The penny dropped at a show when one of their rivals commented on how much stuff they were selling to the UK! 

I've bought die-cast autos from sellers in Poland and Germany. Product was always shipped through the regular mail system and there haven't been any customs fees or duties. My transactions have all been under $50.00; I don't know where the threshold is between small transactions and larger ones that involve duties, customs brokers, etc. 

I buy Maerklin stuff in Europe, gauge 1. Paid with Paypal. Relatively quick delivery. No issues.

My experiences have been similar and I've purchased items in the UK and Japan.  No issues at all other than it takes a while to get here.

--Greg

EBT Jim is this thru eBay?  I have bought from the Russian Federation, Poland, England with no problems thru eBay.  No xtra money either.  Only paid what the price of the item was and the quoted shipping cost.

I bought a model airplane from Poland and the model was $15.00 and shipping was only $10.00.  Can't beat that.

I also bought a model from Mexico (I know it's not Europe) and it took twice as long to receive it from Mexico than the Russian Federation.  Sounds like Star Trek.

Rick