If your khukuri order is late arriving blame it on the HI kothimoda.

Bill Martino

Bill Martino

Joined
Mar 5, 1999
Messages
34,096
Well, if you've been waiting and waiting and waiting for your khukuri and it just won't show up here is probably the reason why.

Nepal customs has busted us and siezed our last two or three shipments. Why? You can blame the kothimoda. Nepal has a non convertible currency and has strict rules about the export of hard currency and silver is about as hard as you can get when it comes to currency. Seems the more than half pound of silver on the kotimoda scabbard is enough to get Gelbu into trouble. He is fighting city hall and will eventually get his merchanise back and will be able to ship it but it will cost him money one way or the other. He thinks he will get everything settled next week and I hope he does since I'm running out of khukuris.

And it is not only Nepal customs that siezes the HI kothimoda. About 3 weeks ago I shipped a kothimoda to forumite Kozak (Harry) up in Canada. The kothimoda was seized by Canadian customs and Harry and I got stuck with a lot of explaining to do and papers to supply. The obvious excellent quality of the HI kothimoda makes it immediately suspect. Canadian Fish and Wildlife is now inspecting the handle of the khukuri as they think such an expensive looking piece is almost surely to be handled in ivory.

Good luck, Harry. Good luck, Gelbu.

Don't we all love customs everywhere?

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Blessings from the computer shack in Reno.

Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ
 
Bill, you have my sincere sympathy. Customs is just a fancy name for state piracy. They might as well just hoist the Jolly Roger and have done with it.

For example; UK customs charges 25% 'value added tax' *plus* 10% excise on anything imported from the USA (did anybody say 'free trade'?) *plus* a ten-dollar 'handling charge' *plus* an 'administration fee'. You can imagine what this does to the price of a khukuri - and that's assuming it doesn't get lost or stolen in transit, as happened to a $500+ custom sword I ordered from Jim Hrisoulas last year.

Show me an exciseman and I'll show you a thief...
 
So are these knives damaged while they're in storage or being tested?I hope this kind of thing dosent happen everytime,that must be a real pain.
 
God Bless America, land that I love, stand beside her and guide her...... oh, sorry. I get carried away sometimes....

HOOWAH! GO ARMY! BEAT NAVY! Sorry, CPT Powell!

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MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
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Fear the man that owns only one rifle,
he likely knows how to use it.
- Anonymous
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Ben Lee
Computer Science, Student, Senior
AOL IM: MSURifleman
www2.netdoor.com/~rifleman
www2.msstate.edu/~brl2
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"The median family of four...paid $4,722 in federal taxes last year. That's enough to pay for a new curtain for the secretary of commerce's office, to bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres with corn...seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000 bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime. Surely civilization would collapse without such essential services."
-- Alan Bock, Orange County Register

I'm pretty sure this applies to most governments as well as it does to ours. Your tax dollars at work.


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"i have trouble with the persons with the signs
but i feel the need to make my own" --King's X
 
X, you called it. They are all the same.

Thankfully, knives are seldom damaged when in the custody of customs but every now and then one or two will disappear -- even here.

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Blessings from the computer shack in Reno.

Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ
 
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