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Tips On Importing Armor and other vehicles from Overseas...

Another Ahab

Another Ahab

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jdmcm said:
Here is my latest tale of importing a vehicle (tank) from overseas. Ship arrived 3 days early, tank was offloaded Saturday morning and by noon Monday had cleared both US Customs and US Dept. of Agriculture.
Click to expand...
Agriculture? What's that all about:

- Checking for "invasive" stow-aways (insects and such)

- Or rogue seeds in the mud on the tracks or something

Is that it?
 
teletech

teletech

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jdmcm said:
Here is my latest tale of importing a vehicle (tank) from overseas...I made the deal with the seller, great guy, very helpful team working for him, I had Paul Bennett do my ATF form 6, got through first time, only took 6 weeks. Had mike Lynch from Intermarket Freight Service handle the shipping from England to USA. Tank gun was deactivated to ATF spec, except the breech ring which the seller removed for me so I could ship it direct to Canada. Here in Canada we do not have the ridiculous laws regarding completely destroying the breech ring with a torch like in the USA (destroying the value of the tank as well in my opinion). Anyway tank was cleaned and loaded at Southhampton, took less than three weeks to arrive in Tacoma (nearest roll on/ roll off port to me). Ship arrived 3 days early, tank was offloaded Saturday morning and by noon Monday had cleared both US Customs and US Dept. of Agriculture. Port of Tacoma allows 15 days grace for the vehicle to be picked up, we picked it up in 3days. So yes there are pitfalls, but if you choose experienced partners who know how to handle the paperwork and shipping, the process does not have to be horrible or prohibitively expensive.
Click to expand...
I bought from a broker who had good experience selling and shipping to the US, used Mike and the broker he recommended who had much experience with armor imports. I did do the form-6 by myself but that was the fastest (just over 3 weeks) and easiest part. I had the gun demilled to BOTH ATF and UK specs, as much as it cost and hurt to do it. After all that I'm still in the hole, it might not have to be but apparently sometimes you just "get lucky" for an extra few grand...
 
M

Maple Leaf Eh

Member
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Ontario, Canada
Another Ahab said:
Agriculture? What's that all about:
- Checking for "invasive" stow-aways (insects and such)
- Or rogue seeds in the mud on the tracks or something
Is that it?
Click to expand...
North America has quarantine rules to protect food and agriculture production. There is a well recognized vector of soil, bacteria, fungus, spore, insects, reptiles, critters, etc arriving in US and Canada and devastating some biological slot in the ecosystem because there are no native counterbalances.

Where I live, most of the White Ash forests are dying from the Emerald Ash Borer Beetle. Dutch Elm disease killed off most of the American Elm forests before I was born. Japanese Beetles are beautiful, but love to eat grape leaves. Purple Loostriff is an ornamental plant that is choking waterways. The Great Lakes have Zebra Mussels, and indifferent pleasure boaters have now transported their seeds to a particular lake that had managed to say clear for 30-years. (Those folks are furious at the tourists!)

As an AFV reference, the British rent a huge training area in the Alberta grasslands. Back in the 90s when the British were going nuts killing off whole dairy barns and beef herds to control an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, where do you think the Army staged their tracked vehicles before loading? Yup, ground zero of the outbreak. Canadian agriculture officials refused a whole battlegroup's equipment when it arrived at the Port of Montreal. Mud on everything. Go home. Cancel your exercise. We don't want to deal with your problems.
 
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