COO for Stamp Dealers, what do you do?
Summary: sapphyres-designer-jewellery is facing challenges in determining the correct Country of Origin (COO) for stamp collections they assemble from various countries, many of which no longer exist, and sell in their online store. They ponder if declaring Canada as COO might help them comply with CUSMA but are uncertain and waiting for more information. ricarmic suggests listing the country if stamps are from a specific place but using Canada for mixed-country collections. They also share their approach to using stamps or discounted postage for shipping, noting the burdens of tariffs and customs. Another participant, recped, advises that calling a collection "Canadian" might not meet CUSMA standards, potentially resulting in high duty rates.
I buy a lot of collections for mixed countries (many countries not existing any longer, most stamp collections I buy are pre 1960), then I take them apart and make new collections. There could be many countries in the collection and no way to break it down for each COO of each stamp (not reasonably so).
What do you do for COO on collections you put together yourself? (or collections you buy and resell as is, that have many different countries)?
This is one thing I'm working on, if I can use Canada as a COO because I made up the collection from many sources, then I'm hoping that would make it CUSMA compliant (but don't know the rules on this either yet, waiting for Stallion's email next week). I can't break it down by price since it's priced as a whole collection.
Trying to wrap my head around this, it affects 1500 listings in my dot com store. If I can do COO as Canada because I put the collection together myself, that would help a lot come Aug 29. When shipping with Stallion I was just using whatever country had the majority of the stamps (and going by whatever it's called now, in cases like Danzig, Rhodesia, Ceylon...)
C.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
OP11 months agoI asked Chat GPT (I took that suggestion from another message I read after I made this OP), and got this:
But still want to hear what others do... one of my contacts tells me that if Customs opens it, they're going to see the name of the country the individual stamps come from and they might not be swift enough to realize that I made up the collection.
C.
ricarmic
·11 months agoI mentioned this in another thread, but my plan is to:
List the country of the stamp if it is a country specific package like 200 different Israel. (ie COO = Israel)
List Canada if it is a multicountry packet like Worldwide, Africa, Airplanes on Stamps, Birds on stamps etc.
I'm pondering what to do if buyer purchases mutiple country packets, ie more than 5 different countries. By the time my store reopens in September there will likely be results here.
PS I'm more with your contact than what "AI" says - country specific stamp packages will be easy to see by customs agent. A worldwide package will also be easy to see it is multi country.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
OP11 months agoMy problem with using all different countries is that I need to create a "product" on Stallion's website for each country I sell stamps from. (It's one product matching one HTS code, one COO and one manufacturer in the COO). Stallion charges 46 cents every time I get one product approved for export. Since it looks like senders will be paying the tariffs, I want to be ready when I reopen in September. (Not sure when exactly, I'll see what's happening on Aug 29 and decide then. I might have things I need to do to my store to be fully ready to ship).
I was told the same thing about coins, they open the package and see the coin says Cayman Islands, they're going to assume that's where it's from, even though it's manufacturered by the Franklin Mint in the US.
This tariff stuff is making our lives complicated.
C.
ricarmic
·11 months agoThis is a good example why I'm (so far) glad to be a stamps on the box kinda guy.
As a note, with your connections you should be able to find (real) postage at or under 50% of face, and the stamp collectors appreciate receiving something collectible on the parcel, or at least a portion do - I'm 100% sure some of my customers frequent me because of the stamps on the parcels.
The "manual" way does have its drawbacks, takes longer at the post office etc, but I'm "rural" so that is 99% of the time not a problem....
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
OP11 months agoIf shipping in an envelope I generally use stamps for mailing, but if it's a collection and weighs over 200 grams, then it will be a label with tracking being used.
I do have lots of discount postage, but what I have is mostly definitives (including $1 and $2 denomination stamps). My source lets me have postage at 60% FV, which is a tad cheaper than the usual discount on unused postage. I have sometimes reduced postage rates on certain things because of the discount postage (to make the item still look attractive to buy).
C.
ricarmic
·11 months agoRE: If shipping in an envelope I generally use stamps for mailing, but if it's a collection and weighs over 200 grams, then it will be a label with tracking being used.
You probably already know this but incase you or someone else doesn't, stamps can be used for payment for anything.... regular letters, tracked, expedited, registered and expresspost. The biggest problem with larger stuff is being able to fit the stamps on. Generally for US shipments I use the "free" 8.5x11.25 bubble envelopes with stamps everywhere both sides other than where the label and buyers address goes on the front. (Bankers boxes of the heavy kind normally have stamps on ALL sides except the bottom, my postmaster loves to see the variety of them - she hand cancels them all with a commemorative cancel for me)
It might also be worthwhile to checkout hibid etc auctions of general/collectible nature. I saw a bunch of lots close in the Vaughn area for 10% to 25% of face.... its not worth the driving time for me to bother (2+ hours each way), but there's at least one seller that looks to be regularly dumping (real) postage lots..... same concept woud hold true in most larger city areas I expect.
recped
·11 months agoChatGPT gave you a pretty good answer but what they didn't tell you is that "Canadian Collection" is not likely going to qualify under CUSMA so the duty rate would be either 25 or 35% (the rate for non-Cusma Compliant goods exported from Canada).