Word of warning - weapons

[Avalon]

Guns,

We were told that you have to have a licence to own guns in NZ. So if you bring a gun in, then customs will want to see the licnece before they release it. I beleive its fairly easy to get one from the police - OR you can get someone already here who has a licence to accept the guns for you. One problem may be that you need to be legally entiltled to possess a firearm in the UK before you can Export it!

Bladed weopans - we bought in quite a few of them! We have re-inactment swords which are blunted, antique swords which are not, and a motley collection of daggers, either for eating with or antique ones which were probably made to kill people with! We also have a longbow and arrows, a pike and ax (blunted) and a serious collection of water pistols ! We were warned by the shippers that we should check with customs BEFORE sending them. So we took the approach of sending emails to customs, and then when we were told it was OK, keeping a copy. We gave copies to the shippers as well.

Everything came through OK. I always thought with things that there may be a question mark over - declare it and ask the questions. They seem to be looking for hidden stuff (or what they perceive to be hidden). Tell 'em its there and they dont seem to bat an eyelid.

HTH

[Simon & Emily]

As this has been bumped to the top, I'd just like to know if there is any further info on the diving knive? Has anyone had problems bringing these in? As others have said, these can be seen as quite tame compared to some other tools etc that often come over, but seem to attract the most interest.

Diny - did you get your sword in? Hope so

Luckily we've already sold all our guns - it just seemd the easiest option - and the only martial arts swords we have are wooden, so they can't complain too much about them

I guess if you just move house within the same country you simply pack everything up and do what you want with it. It's only when you have customs experts going over it all that things that seem normal to you raise eyebrows to other people.

Emily