Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion SHIPPED TO CANADA

On Sept.1st. I shipped this B/A thermometer to Canada.Sept. 31st. the buyer contacted me to see if I had shipped--(actually contacted him on the 1st.and told him I had shipped)

Oct.1st the package came back to me with a letter stating "content determined to be dangerous goods"

Conclusion--I guess the small amount of mercury in a thermometer is not acceptable even though the thermometer was triple wrapped in plastic.

End result--I contacted the buyer and refunded his paypal payment.

Comments?

So the customs people open boxes and determine this to be hazardous? Picky, picky, wonder if they washed their hands after touching it?

FYI. That's alcohol (usually ethanol) with red coloring and not mercury. I agree it's picky but it is flammable.
Ron

Just a suggestion...It might have gone through Customs without being opened, if you had used a description like "antique plastic advertising item" or "Vintage service station advertising item". I.E. no reference to "thermometer" or even "gas" or "oil". John

...what Ron said - only thermometers with silver fluid contain mercury...but it's ridiculous that such an item was deemed dangerous in the first place...

Agree,probably would have gone through customs that way.The other side of the coin is that I try to be honest in my declaration,had I not and it was inspected I would have been liable for a false statement. I guess the lesson here is that I will not ship thermometers to Canada.

Thanks for the input!

Looks like it never cleared usa customs, so you can transport it all the way to the customs. they deem it as hazardous, then put the thing back in the mail system....LOL
not to hazardous to ship around the country I guess...seriously, is this is all you have to do, must have been a slow day???
I guess on the bright side they could have destroyed it and you don't even get it back....but that's only if it actually is hazardous I guess....LOL

Look on the bright side,at least it made it back to you in one piece.
If it arrived broken,10-1 odds they would've never admitted to it.

I would have just put collectible as description. . I was bidding on that one as well. Looks like it better that I didn't win this.

You are lucky that USPS caught it and sent it back to you. A few years back I bought a wax tin on eBay from the US. A number of days later I received a note from Canada Customs in Calgary letting me know that they destroyed it since it contained petroleum products. It was probably a slow day in Calgary like today coping with the foot of snow that they got yesterday.

If you think that’s bad, I used eBay’s GSP recently and the bastards at their shipping center stole about $50+ of extras I included in the box for the guy. Real nice. I never claimed them because they were tiny smalls so I have no leg to stand on in an argument with eBay

I had the same problem with a newer Soda thermometer I bought on Ebay from a US seller. When It got to the Ebay Global shipping center I was notified by Ebay that it was a restricted item and would be returned to the seller and I would get a refund, which I did. Awhile later I bought a replacement 20" thermometer tube for my Prestone thermometer from the US shipped via USPS and it made it across the boarder with no issues. Not sure why one got through and the other didn't? I can't remember what was marked for contents on the customs forms however, perhaps that made the difference? I also recently bought a small vintage Delco battery transistor radio from a US seller and that was held up at the Global shipping centre as a possible "hazardous item" It was eventually released and made it across the boarder. Guess they thought it was a real car battery