Doesn't this amount to making you an interest free loan until the point the coins are actually funded?
Unless you were planning on immediately opening your coin upon receipt and investing the bitcoins, what's the difference to you? You could've saved a lot of time by not buying the coin in the first place.
What happens if you get hit by a beer truck between when they ship and when you intended to fund them?
Probably the same thing as if he gets hit by a beer truck between the time you sent your payment and the time he ships. IIRC, Casascius has a pretty robust dead man's switch in place for his business.
I don't feel particularly comfortable receiving unfunded coins and bearing that risk just to help foreign buyers get their coins through customs cheaper.
Casascius has been sending unfunded coins for a long time now, for the simple reason that there is a risk of theft in mail - a risk much higher than Casascius being randomly killed. Really it's to protect the buyer - how would you feel if your coin arrived opened and drained, or not at all? You think Casascius wants to deal with people demanding their bitcoins back because of mail theft when it's easy and secure to fund the coins on arrival?
In any case, it's a non-issue as these foreign buyers just want a different invoice so they have to pay less VATS.
