A Complex Task at Best
Where is the most logical place in the
world to buy Russian stamps? Well, you might think that the answer to that
question is "Russia"!
If you guessed Russia, then I'm afraid you guessed
wrong. Prices for Russian stamps are many times higher in Russia than they
are in the US - indeed, some US dealers report that they have Russian dealers
coming over to buy stamps from them to take back to Russia!
However, if you find yourself in Russia, and in a stamp
shop, and if a short while later, you're walking out of the stamp shop with a
bundle of stamps, this is just the start of your challenges.
Believe it or not, unlike most countries, you are more
likely to pay customs duty on items that you take out of Russia than items that
you take into Russia! Is this crazy? Yes! Here is the largest
part of the world, all focused in on exporting local products (and lots of
countries that seem to almost exist on their stamp exports!), and then we
suddenly come to Russia where the opposite rules apply.
There is actually a historical reason why this is
so. During Soviet times the Russian economy was topsy-turvy. Instead
of being like most economies, where there are plenty of goods, but in which
people have a shortage of money to buy everything they want, in Russia the
opposite applied - the citizens had (comparatively) plenty of money, but there
were shortages of everything, whether we're talking about food, clothing,
housing, cars, or whatever. So it was valuable to Russia to import
anything that it could, and important to limit the exports of commodities that
were in short supply.
Nowadays, Russia is more like a "normal"
country - there is plenty of everything, but no-one has any money! Whether
or not this is a "good thing" is very definitely a subjective matter
of opinion. However, good thing or bad thing, the customs rules from the
previous era seem to have survived and there are still more restrictions on
taking goods out of the country than on bringing them in.
If you want to take stamps out of the country, you need
to first of all get them valued by an official stamp valuer. This is a
non-trivial task. I only know of one official stamp valuer - the Popov
Museum in St Petersburg - but the stamp dealer you have bought the stamps from
should be able to help you here - indeed, insist on getting his help before you
agree to buy the stamps as the chances are that the dealer may have some sort of
"arrangement" with a valuer to get things done quickly and at a fair
value.
Indeed, the best approach to this would be
to hope to pay by credit card to the dealer and have him entirely responsible
for getting the stamps to you any way he can in a reasonably timely manner, and
tell the dealer that if the stamps don't arrive in the agreed time, you'll
simply dispute the credit card charge. In such a case I'd probably endorse
the credit card charge form "goods not yet received" or "goods to
arrive by <date>" or something like that so if there is a dispute you
can clearly show that you had not received the goods at the time of payment.
But if you are exporting the stamps yourself, the valuer will want to
see the stamps and see a list of every stamp, its value, its year of issue, its catalog number, and
its catalog value. Most Russians like to use Michel, and the catalog
values in Michel are very high compared to in Scott. Yuck. And,
double yuck. You know all those valueless Tsarist Russian stamps that
you've got lying around the place back home? Well, don't try and bring any
more home with you! Those are considered to be "state treasures"
and exporting any stamps older than about 50 yrs old gets to be very difficult
indeed!
The paperwork in doing all of this is pretty scary,
but, like everything in Russia, can be "negotiable" somewhat.....
Once you've got an official value, you pay the valuer a
percentage of their assessed value (yeah, like that is going to give them an
incentive to undervalue rather than overvalue your stamps!). The valuer
will also seal up the stamps so that you can't then substitute stamps, etc,
between when they have valued them and when you leave the country (yes, they've
thought of that!). Next you have to go to the Ministry of Customs with the
valuation certificate (no need to bring the stamps, just the certificate) and get them to approve the valuation and issue you with a
duty invoice. Hopefully the stamp valuer can tell you where the
appropriate part of the Customs Dept is located these days, and what hours they
are open. Lastly, you have to go to a special Customs office at the
airport with the stamps and all the paperwork and pay the duty before checking
in for your flight out of Russia.
All of this can easily take up a day of time or more,
depending on how many stamps you have and how long it takes to list them all.
The alternative is to leave them in your suitcase and,
ooops, forget to declare them as you leave the country. :) This of course
introduces an element of excitement into the proceedings - if you are caught
(and the Customs people X-ray all luggage in your presence and seem to open a
measurable percentage semi-randomly) then the best case scenario is somewhere
between they won't care and that you'll
end up paying a stiff fine, and the worst case scenario is that you'll lose the
stamps, still pay a stiff fine, and probably miss your flight as well. Not
recommended unless you're an experienced Russian traveller!
Update - August 2000
There have been some
changes and clarifications to some of the laws relating to exporting
"fine art" items from Russia. We do not know the
implication of these changes to exporting stamps - best case scenario,
things may be a bit easier now; worst case scenario, things will remain
as outlined above.
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