Bringing Seal skin sporran - advice

[emmaB]

Hi guys

Random question - but my husband, being Scottish, has a kilt and all the regalia he wants to bring with him. His sporran (the man bag, for those of you unaccustomed to the costume!) is made of leather and seal skin, as is traditional.

Any ideas a) whether MAF will accept this into the country, and b) whether it would be best to send this in our container, or take it in our personal hold baggage declare it personally when we land?

Its an expensive piece of costume ($500 NZ at least to replace sporran) so we're really keen for him to be able to take it, but not sure how it works best.

Thanks for your advice and wisdom!

Emma

[Parsley]

It might be worth you contacting MPI (was formerly MAF) to ask about the specific object. My stepdad had problems at Customs with his bagpipes, as they have ivory bits on the drones. The fact that the pipes are themselves over 100 years old didn't appear to hold any water with them - he was asked about CITES import certification and all sorts of things he didn't have a clue about! He did manage to get them through Customs, but it took ages (while the rest of us fretted and he panicked). I'd get in touch and ask for their advice. Their website is here http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/

[Familyofmonkeys]

I brought my grandad's old sporran with us to NZ and had no issues with MAF. Mind you I inherited it along with the original receipt from the 1960's, still in the original box with the original address label on it, so it was clearly an old inherited item and I wasn't trying to smuggle something illegal in for resale or personal gain.

[emmaB]

Thanks for your comments so far. I've emailed MPI, and am awaiting a response - hopefully it should be quite straightforward, and I'm just getting myself in a tizz over nothing!

The sporran is part of the whole kilt outfit, which is obviously being shipped as well - albeit in the container, rather than our plane baggage. Hopefully with that context it'll also be clear we're not bringing one random item in for resale and personal gain!

[emmaB]

For reference, I had a very helpful email back from MPI yesterday. They've answered my question fully and sensibly, so sharing the links and info here in case anyone else happens to ever worry about transporting a sporran (!)

There are no Biosecurity restrictions for your husbands sealskin sporran as these types of skins will have been fully tanned and cured.

If you bring it on your flight it must be declared on your passenger arrival card and the MPI (MAF) Inspector may or may not choose to inspect and there will be no charge. If it comes in with your personal belongings later you must declare it on your UPBD form but we will not need to inspect as it is fully tanned leather and is allowed into NZ anyway under an ihs

IHS stands for Import Health Standard, and the link to the relevant information about hides and skins is currently: http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/files...ic.all-ihs.pdf

[mylesdw]

I don't think it applies in this case but remember that MAF and Customs are not the same and they each have their lists of things you can't bring into the country, just for different reasons. The ivory mentioned above, for example, would not be an issue for MAF because it poses no bio-security risk but the customs are interested in it for political reasons.

[Fulhair]

I had my kilt shipped over from the UK to NZ via airfreight for my wedding and shipped back later. I have a seal skin sporan and had no issues with MAF