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Originally Posted by driftwould
Hi all! Does anyone know anything about getting daggers/keris into/out of Taiwan/the Philippines? If not, how can I find out? I'm pretty new to this, so any insights would really help!
I've moved to Taiwan and am planning a trip to the Philippines over Christmas. I'm planning to get a Keris while I'm in the Philippines if possible and bring it back to Taiwan. Also, my uncle is returning from the US to the Philippines with a couple of daggers with 6"-7" blades that I want to pick up there and bring back in stowed luggage along with the keris. The problem is, while I've done this with the same daggers when I brought them from China to the US, I keep hearing some people say Taiwan's laws are really strict about this kind of thing and others say it's no issue.
Specifically, the US shipping company I want to use for all my stuff (in one big crate) said that shipping weapons (including daggers, etc) into Taiwan carries strict penalties and confiscation. I've heard something similar from someone else here. However, I've already bought a North African dagger/short sword with a 16"+ blade from ebay and had it shipped here no problem. Also, I talked to a guy in a local shop who sells antiques from China and he said as long as you're not bringing them directly from China there's no problem in actual fact- and that the only problems happen on the Mainland (Chinese) side, not at Taiwanese customs.
One more complicating factor is that I know from past experience with unrelated issues in Taiwan that you can get 10 different "official" answers about the same thing from the same office on the same day, no matter what you're trying to do!
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I have shipped several swords to Taiwan without a problem, the only thing is that the customs will not accept sharpened edges , So you have to make them blunt. That is what my customers in Taiwan always wants me to do.
what I always do extra is wrapp the blunt edges in multilayers of tape etc so that it is clear they can not be used directly.
regards,
Arjan