News regarding the submission of Gendaito to shinsa

Received the following information regarding submitting gendaito for shinsa in Japan. Thought I would share it.

Your sword is the last one that was not over 100 years old that I will send. Japanese customs will not let me enter swords again that are not antique using the method I have used for over 45 years. They say the items are not antique so must be declared by a custom broker and a duty be paid on all pieces with date of less than 100 years. A undated gendai can enter. Go figure that one.

This is what I have been hearing too. They are afraid of smiths making swords outside of Japan and bringing them in, circumventing the law. Since it is too difficult for them to make a distinction, they use one already available- the 100 year old antique classification.

This will make restoration a real pain in the ass. One can simply declare the sword as being worth $200 and pay the small duty....

Whats the best way to get a gendaito into Japan now just use EMS? Also if you have to pay the duty how much would it be as a percentage?

Hi Peter,

Perhaps Chris knows more, this is new news to me. I would think EMS is an acceptable if not the only method of import.

If it is like it is here, when something is shipped to you it is automatically sent to a random import broker and a fee is generated. I had several shipments from the Europe and they were sent to Homeland Security and a Import Broker. I was automatically billed via my UPS account.

What was odd was that only the UPS shipments were treated this way. DHL did not require or bill me for an import broker nor were they marked as having been inspected by Homeland Security. ????

As far as the fees, they are determined by the declared value.

When sending to Japan from the US, ems is for all practical purposes the only way. It was always the case when importing swords less than 100 years old that you needed to go through a whole different pile of red tape if the declared value was greater than something like $2000. I always just declared the value to be less than that and never had a problem. I am not sure if this new thing is really new or simply strict enforcement of the old rule. It could also be a few limited cases of new people gumming up the works. That is always the problem- many times you have the misfortune of drawing the new zealot....It is hard to get straight and/or correct answers many times because people either don't really know the rules or else don't want to say something because they don't know and don't want to be responsible.

I have to call the agent I use in a few days and will see if he has any new info....