Steve Santini 22 Apr 2008
#9hi, i have a question for canadian collectors, is it legal to ship handcuffs from canada to countries that allow legal ownership of them?. i have a few pairs that i want to list on ebay, but i am not sure if i need some form of license to send them to countries other than canada/united states. does anyone have experiance with this?. thanks, chris.
Chris,
To relax you further on this matter, I just shipped a very large crate containing over 60 handcuffs, leg irons, other diverse restraints, and Medieval instruments of torture and punishment to a large museum that is soon to open in the USA.
To avoid any of the usual grabage that gets slung by the "no names" that lurk here I will refrain from mentioning this museum by name at this time.
In order to ship this crate I had to of course fill out all of the brokerage documents, descriptions for the Dept. of Homeland Security (including countries of origin and manufacture for each and every item in the crate), and customs documents.
It may interest you to know that this crate, which was very large and in the end weighed over 350 lbs made it to it's destination without any "red flags" or trouble at all.
It may also interest you to know that this crate also contained a number of authentic torture devices and also a few antique edged weapons.
The reason this was permitted and all went through with no trouble at all is that all required paperwork was filled out and the proper channels were followed.
The only slightly more complicated issue that was observed and addressed by myself was that some of the fabric restraints in the crate needed to have more detailed paperwork due to export/import laws governing textiles and the countries in which said items were manufactured.
Aside from this requirement the only other thing of import seemed to be whether any of the items were made in, or had origin in, countries that are currently not in good standing with the USA.
That being said, as you are probably not shipping a 350 lb crate filled with restraints and as it is not likely that any cuffs you are selling were made in Iraq or North Korea you should be more than fine.
Good luck with your auctions.
Steve Santini