AKA – the ‘Bad News’ (and yes, we are on it)
The EXACT reason is still unclear – but since March this year ongoing difficulties shipping swords overseas came to a head when every single sword we tried to send to Europe, regardless of whether it was shipped from China or the USA, was getting rejected..
NOW it appears that the issue has hit several other countries, including my country of birth, Australia. So it just got VERY personal..
At the moment, it appears that there is a directive specifically targeting swords as items ‘too dangerous’ to be sent by air. Here are some pictures of a sword we tried to ship to Australia but was rejected and covered with the following series of unpleasant stickers..
USPS was, until now, the BEST and most affordable way to ship a sword overseas. But now that it appears to be off the table, it leaves only private companies like UPS, Fed Ex, DHL, etc capable of shipping – but even these companies are hit and miss now (not to mention typically cost 3 times as much as USPS used to, incur additional fees and charges at the destination and basically make sword buying cost prohibitive if it costs almost as much to ship as it does to buy the product itself)..
And then the only other option, to use a forwarding service like those introduced on the main site here – is also becoming harder..
With everything unclear and up in the air (pardon the pun)
it is with great regret that we have no choice but to temporarily suspend all non-North American orders until we have found some kind of answer to this insidious problem.
I honestly don’t know what this directive is supposed to achieve.
Swords don’t explode or leap out of the boxes and start attacking people by themselves (well, not if the box is made well enough – and most swords have the blade sheathed when they ship, those that don’t are packed in such a way to avoid sudden ‘box piercing’ such as by using a plastic tip sleeve in conjunction with other measures). So there’s absolutely no reason for them not be allowed on a private carrier company such as DHL, etc.
And while in theory I suppose terrorists who somehow got into the cargo hold (unlikely) and were able to both find a sword shipment (again, unlikely), get them out of the boxes and come back out of the cargo hold without being sealed in for good could come up brandishing a sword, it sounds like a whole lot more trouble than it is worth – not to mention using a sword in a confined space is not as easy as the movies and would not be all that hard to overpower.. (these imaginary terrorists would be better off coming up with kitchen knives – and AFAIK they are still okay to ship)..
So please bear with us – so far the only country not effected by all of this is Canada, as the swords can be shipped overland. But everywhere else is out until we can find either the root cause of this apparent global manifest specifically targeting ‘swords’ and/or find a shipping company or forwarder who knows what is going on and is willing to take our business, small as it may be, just on the principle of it..
We will keep you updated accordingly. A solution MUST be found and we will do our best to find a way out of this.. So watch this space..
