Importing 100 Brass Tokens with Hologram to GermanySo my 100 1-BTC casascius coins had been held at the customs office in Hamburg because the German Post wasn't able to declare them (reason given: no invoice attached to outside of package).
I went there to declare it myself. After "getting a number", the usual procedure when dealing with german bureaucracy. My number was called and a girl in her twenties showed me the package and asked what was in it. I said it cointained Brass Holograms with no monetary value and pointed to the customs number on Mikes invoice.
She told me to open the package (which was actually 3 packages inside of each other, Mike packed it really well). I put the 2 heavy rolls of 50 Coins onto the table: "here we go.". She looked at them and saying I should sit down and wait, she would check. She went to the backroom.
While waiting it dawned on me she was actually doing her job and probably googling bitcoin. I wasn't wrong: after 25 minutes she came back with a printout of the order form casascius.com. She had entered "100" into the first text-box (1 BTC Casascius Coin). She asked me how much 1 Bitcoin was worth and I told her: "currently you can get about €11 for one".
OH SHIT!My fear was unfounded: since she had already read that Mike would load them after I had received them it wasn't very hard to convince her that what I actually had bought were blanks. (Not ocrrect, since the blanks don't have holograms. She could've had me right there!). However she kept asking how much I had payed. I argued that I knew Mike and he had given me the coins as a present and I would load the up myself.
So she went to the backroom again (she said she had talked to higher-ups before and would have to do so again) for another 20 minutes. She came back with a calculation of value: 100 * BTC 0.05 * 11 €/BTC = 55€ + 30.82 € shipping (yes, you have to pay import sales tax on the shipping!!!) = BTC 85.82. That would be 7% = €6.11 please. (She even had a printout of some exchange site to back up the 11€ exchange rate.)
PHEW!So I payed up and asked wether our business was now conducted, put another 1 BTC coin I had with me on the counter and stated it clearly wouldn't be considered a bribe if I gave her this coin. I saw her hand make a micro-move towards the coin before she had to say: "Sorry, I'm not allowed to, but thanks a lot!"
So I guess some people at the Customs office in Hamburg might be looking into Bitcoin now
Problematic points where:
- The invoice Mike sent me couldn't be used because it was "proforma" (didn't get around to ask what could be improved)
- It says "gift" on the Customs Declaration... then why did I have an invoice?
- I didn't have documentation of any payment. (Actually I could've pointed to a BTC 112 transaction but that wouldn't have been advisable)
- The "Blanks" on Mikes order page have no hologram, the ones I imported however, do.
needless to say: I'm reselling Casascius Series 1 physical bitcoins (1 BTC) using
my thread here (bitmit escrow is too hot a potato currently)