Question-Card Collection in Canada

[dagooch]

Has anyone who's a US citizen picked up a card collection in Canada and brought it back on the airplane? What are the rules and regulations? Customs or Duty? It's hard to find the info online. 1000's of cards $100k plus in total.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by dagooch

Has anyone who's a US citizen picked up a card collection in Canada and brought it back on the airplane? What are the rules and regulations? Customs or Duty? It's hard to find the info online. 1000's of cards $100k plus in total.

This may help.

https://www.ezbordercrossing.com/the...at-to-declare/

https://www.ezbordercrossing.com/the...-will-it-cost/

There doesn't seem to be an exact number you can come up with to determine what you may owe as a duty when coming back into the U.S. It may actually behoove you to contact U.S. Custom services and get an advance estimate from them, so you know what you might be looking at, and what proof you may need to verify what you actually paid for something (in this case a card collection) you will be considered as importing into the U.S. Another thought may be to look into going up to view and then purchase the collection, and then maybe see what it would cost to have it shipped back to you from Canada. Duty would still be technically owed, so shipping it wouldn't necessarily save you any money but could save you the border/customs hassle then. Would also understand maybe not wanting to ship something like that back across the border, and let such a valuable collection out of your sight and take the added chance of damage/loss in shipping it.

Also may want to find out if the seller is going to be declaring this for tax purposes in Canada or not. If questioned as to what you paid for the collection at the border, a person not wanting to report this for tax purposes is not likely to be giving you a formal receipt or sale, or necessarily wanting to share what you paid someone for the collection. Coming back, you end up paying duty to the U.S. officials, not to Canadian officials. But the U.S. and Canadian border officials likely work together and share info. So going to the U.S. Customs officials and telling you paid say $100K for the collection, they may end up asking you for proof and/or who it was that you may have made the purchase from. If they follow up with Canadian officials, your seller may not be real happy with you. Last thing you want to do is get ion trouble with border officials.

I personally haven't done what you're looking to do, and hopefully some others here on the forum that have done this can chime in and offer more/better advice as well. Good luck on the purchase

[Lucas00]

If it's 100k plus maybe just pay the guy a little extra to meet you somewhere in the states and skip the major headache.

[BobC]

Though I couldn't find a specific mention of sports cards, if you click on the following link, it should take you to the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule. This section may cover what you're looking for. I would still advise contacting the U.S. Customs and Border services for a more accurate estimate.

https://hts.usitc.gov/current

The Chapter 49 section deals with items made of paper, and printed items, books, etc., This seems to be the most appropriate section I could find that would cover and possibly include sports cards. The Chapter 95 section includes playing cards, along with toys/games and sports related equipment and so on. So you may want to review this chapter as well for additional reference. Good luck, hope this helps.

And as Lucas said, if you can get the seller to come to you instead, it would save you the hassle of having to declare the items and possibly paying some U.S. duty/tariffs on the cards. But do maybe double check and see if you can get an advance duty estimate from U.S. Customs services first. It may end up not being that big a deal after all, or that expensive to bring sports cards back to the U.S. A lot of paper based items outlined in Chapter 49 did not appear to have any duty owed on them when bringing them into the U.S. You might get lucky after all and end up owing nothing on them. Again, good luck.

[JimmyC]

Originally Posted by Lucas00

If it's 100k plus maybe just pay the guy a little extra to meet you somewhere in the states and skip the major headache.

Definitely a great idea - especially at the values you are talking about….

I just sold a pretty expensive hockey jersey to a guy in Canada and he was kind enough to have me ship it to a friend in the US who would handle if from there…..was very lucky…..

[Lobo Aullando]

For a recently manufactured pack of cards, it would be 49. However, the old stuff is considered more like coins, stamps, or a work of art. Those are Chapter 97 (specifically, HS9702).*


* - I'm 99% percent sure this is how they'd want you to file, but always defer to their advice.

Originally Posted by BobC

Though I couldn't find a specific mention of sports cards, if you click on the following link, it should take you to the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule. This section may cover what you're looking for. I would still advise contacting the U.S. Customs and Border services for a more accurate estimate.

https://hts.usitc.gov/current

The Chapter 49 section deals with items made of paper, and printed items, books, etc., This seems to be the most appropriate section I could find that would cover and possibly include sports cards. The Chapter 95 section includes playing cards, along with toys/games and sports related equipment and so on. So you may want to review this chapter as well for additional reference. Good luck, hope this helps.

And as Lucas said, if you can get the seller to come to you instead, it would save you the hassle of having to declare the items and possibly paying some U.S. duty/tariffs on the cards. But do maybe double check and see if you can get an advance duty estimate from U.S. Customs services first. It may end up not being that big a deal after all, or that expensive to bring sports cards back to the U.S. A lot of paper based items outlined in Chapter 49 did not appear to have any duty owed on them when bringing them into the U.S. You might get lucky after all and end up owing nothing on them. Again, good luck.

[boysblue]

If it's 100k plus maybe just pay the guy a little extra to meet you somewhere in the states and skip the major headache.

^^^^^^^

This would create a problem for the Canadian seller though. His failure to declare that he is entering the USA with items for sale could get him into real trouble with US Customs.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Lobo Aullando

For a recently manufactured pack of cards, it would be 49. However, the old stuff is considered more like coins, stamps, or a work of art. Those are Chapter 97 (specifically, HS9702).*


* - I'm 99% percent sure this is how they'd want you to file, but always defer to their advice.

And exactly why I advised the OP to still contact U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to get a better estimate from them. He did not mention what the collection was made up of, old pre-war or vintage cards, sets, packs, modern, or a mix. As you noted, depending on what is in the set and the age, etc., he could have different portions of the collection subject to different tariffs/duties.

And as someone else noted, getting the seller to maybe come to the U.S. to drop off the collection may save the OP the hassle of going through customs, but the collection is still going to get hit with whatever tariffs/duties are going to be owed on it. And the seller may want quite a bit more than expected then to now cover his travel costs and the tariff/duty charges he'll be getting hit with. And I still wonder if the seller was planning to be reporting this sale for tax purposes in Canada. If not, he may not be wanting to bring it to the U.S./Canadian border himself and giving officials his name and telling them any other information about the collection he's selling then. Do not discount the possibility of Canadian and U.S. authorities sharing info about their citizens moving back and forth across their borders.

[Fred]

Grant,

How much of a drive is the collection from where you live in Washington? If it's a days drive, I'd just drive and bring it back. Is any of it graded? If it's all raw, then it just looks like cardboard sports cards. If it's slabbed stuff, then it looks like potential $$$ signs.

If it's a lot of cards that can't be hand carried then do you really want to put the cards in the cargo hold of a plane and have the cards potentially lost/damaged? I guess all the high $$ ticket items would be in the carry-on.

Edited to add - 10 years ago most people wouldn't have thought about declaring cardboard... Never really thought about the implications of moving the stuff across international borders. I can remember having (6) N162s (including an Anson) shipped to me from Australia. I never thought about the custom's/duties on that stuff. I just looked at it as baseball cards heading to my collection.