So mailing knives is prohibited? I guess we are all criminals!

EChoil said:
Canada is a crazy place for knives. The government there doesn't trust their subjects with much blade.

There's a code you have to use to send them into Canada....people have posted it here before but I can't remember what it is---something like "camping gear" or "collectible recreational item...". And even if you do that, if customs grabs it randomly you're cooked.

This is my understanding anyway. Maybe a Canadian can better inform you or correct me if I'm wrong.
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Yep, wrong. :)

You can put "knife" or "sword" on the package, and Customs doesn't care.
I have mailed knives to the USA with "Knife" or "pocket knife" listed as the contents...no issues.

However, UPS and Fed Ex in Canada flat out refused to ship knives to the USA, despite the fact that True North Knives ships exclusively by UPS (I guess UPS must figure they sell spoons...).

It's a Postal or courier issue, not a Customs or country issue.

As long as it isn't specifically prohibited item (push dagger, switchblade, balisong or "knuckle knife) and it cannot be flicked, it'll cross the border just fine. :thumbup:

As for the Postal and courier services, they are always the annoying linkage in the whole procedure.
 
Don't be stupid.

Don't be stupid.

Do lie to the USPS :)

Oh and don't mail sharps without lots of protection.. I hate getting a box with a knife bouncing around on the inside with no bubble wrap, tape or box? WTH... Don't be stupid, and don't be so forthcoming.
 
I ran into that once when I lived in another location. Had a clerk who got all nervous about a knife being sent to Canada and refused to mail it. I showed him the regulations and he consulted with the post master, who sided with him after consulting with the post master of the next town over. However, I then explained my case to the respective post masters and had them call someone higher up. The sheepish call came in a couple days later that it was totally fine for me to send knives to Canada as long as they weren't on the prohibited items list and were securely packaged.
 
I have had a great relationship with three post offices I frequent in my area. I have NEVER had an issue mailing out(to all points of the globe) any of my knives. I, unlike the envelope packer shown previously, package my knives as if they were to be thrown off a cliff. I also do not lie on the customs form and list my knives as "cutlery" every single time. I have never lost a knife in shipping.

-Peter
 
Hiro-kun said:
I don't see how your experience with what appears to be the park's private security should imply anything about the repressiveness of the Canadian government. In Canada, the only knives that are explicitly prohibited are:
  1. Belt buckle knives
  2. Push daggers / punching knives
  3. Knives concealed as other innocuous objects that is less than 30 cm long
  4. Automatic knives
  5. Gravity and centrifugal knives
  6. Throwing stars
  7. Bladed rings
Source

All other knives and bladed objects are perfectly legal to own and carry, open or concealed, in Canada. The burden of proof is on the government to prove that a knife being carried is intended to be used as a weapon, which would be illegal. Police may question one who is openly carrying a fixed blade in the city, but the only grounds for arrest is if they have cause to believe that you intend to use it as a weapon. In 2011, after a spate of stabbings, Edmonton's police declared a policy of arresting anyone carrying a knife in public. But, this is an exception, rather than the rule. The hysteria died down soon, as I have seen news of Edmonton's prisons being packed with regular citizens awaiting trial for carrying SAKs. In some ways, Canadian laws on knives are more liberal than in some US states:
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I guess I was there during the hysteria years.

So you think Canada has more freedom where knife ownership and carry are concerned than Texas?
 
EChoil said:
Canada is a crazy place for knives. The government there doesn't trust their subjects with much blade.

There's a code you have to use to send them into Canada....people have posted it here before but I can't remember what it is---something like "camping gear" or "collectible recreational item...". And even if you do that, if customs grabs it randomly you're cooked.

This is my understanding anyway. Maybe a Canadian can better inform you or correct me if I'm wrong.

I know I was followed around by four security guys at an amusement park in Montreal a time back because I carried a SAK in a belt case. They finally surrounded my wife and I in an obscure corner of the park, asked me why I had it and escorted us to the security office where they demanded I surrender the SAK.

I in turn demanded a claim check, a receipt and a statement of cause from them, which allowed me to send the claim check back to them after I returned home for return of the knife by mail. They sent it back, but sheeeesh...over a Swiss Army Knife???​

I understand Canada is also a partner in our War on Terror so long as they do not have to participate in actual combat and provide only non-lethal support...

You figure it out....I can't. :dejection:
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In Canada the laws are actually pretty slack in my opinion basically you can carry what ever you want as long as you can justify to the police that it's for a purpose other than self defense.
And I've never had a problem receiving a knife from the states but there is usually nothing on the package the says knife.
 
This discussion is about problems mailing knives, not war casualties. If this does not do a 180 degree turn, it will be locked and warnings will be issued for those deserving.
 
EChoil said:
I guess I was there during the hysteria years.

So you think Canada has more freedom where knife ownership and carry are concerned than Texas?
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In terms of ownership, no. Many of the knives I listed as illegal in Canada are legal to own in Texas. In terms of carry, it is less clear because Texas allows the carry of some knives which are illegal in Canada, but forbids the carry of some knives that are not illegal to carry in Canada.
 
I remember right after (a year maybe?) 9/11. Tried mailing a bowie to USA, came back labeled as "weapon". Quite funny looking back. Like it would jump out of the box and stab someone.
 
"I know I was followed around by four security guys at an amusement park in Montreal a time back because I carried a SAK in a belt case. They finally surrounded my wife and I in an obscure corner of the park, asked me why I had it and escorted us to the security office where they demanded I surrender the SAK.

I in turn demanded a claim check, a receipt and a statement of cause from them, which allowed me to send the claim check back to them after I returned home for return of the knife by mail. They sent it back, but sheeeesh...over a Swiss Army Knife???"

Although I think asking for the claim check was wise, one thing I think that should be remembered is that you were in someone else's house, twice. Canada and a privately owned property. I agree that it isn't nice the way they treated your family. Then again, their house, their rules. Did you know with in reason that carrying that in the park, or that providence, or Canada was okay? That is fully on you. Could they have handled differently? Yes. They didn't need to though.

Which leads to shipping knives. I have always been completely honest, and never had a single issue. I've used the big 3, and haven't had even so much as an awkward look.​
 
Amusement park in Canada doesn't allow knives? How about Disneyland in the US or any county fair for that matter?
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Amusement park in Canada doesn't allow knives?
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I had my Spyderco Kris at Marineland in Niagara Falls on my honeymoon.
I put it with my wallet and keys in the storage stand for riding the Sky Screamer (stuff can go flying out of pockets).
Staff didn't care at all. :)

That was in 2008.
 
I have noticed that they have gotten a lot more picky about items shipping out of the country. My PO said Canada was one of the most restrictive.
 
braillediver said:
"because it may, under conditions encountered in the mail, be injurious to life, health, or property. "
I think this means if shipping a knife it must be safely packed so as Not to Endanger the Postal Employees or equipment.

In other words Don't ship a knife in an envelope:
attachment.php
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Yep. Yesterday, I received a Geneva Forge USN MK1 in a NORD fiberglass sheath in a package just like that, although my package was torn less severely. I have received numerous FBs in these flat rate envelopes.

The worst case was an 8" Western G46-8 WW2 vintage blade without a sheath. The shipper had "made" a "sheath" out of a toilet paper center and taped it to the knife with cellophane tape and stuck it in one of those 9" x 12" yellow paper envelopes. By the time it got to me, via a note that I had a package to "sign for". The "signing for" consisted of being bitched at by the Postmaster because the knife was poking 3 inches out of the envelope.

I pointed out that I was just the recipient, not the shipper and that he should contact the postmaster at the shipper's end (small Fla town) and have that postmaster chew the shipper out. He agreed and made a photocopy of the shippers' info and the package and contents. A week later, I had a note in my box to see the postmaster. Turns out that after he had contacted the postmaster in Fla, the shipper tried to do it again. Since the PO there had started watching for obviously poorly packaged (thin envelope with very large hard objects in them), they had returned the package to the shipper. He came in bitching. Bottom line, the postmaster in Fla got mad and BANNED the shipper from drop shipping any packages through his post office, that ANY package he shipped would have to be dropped off in person at the counter or it would be returned. He let my postmaster know what he had done and my postmaster in turn let me know. I guess that the PO there could do that because the town was so small they knew everybody.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
Bottom line, the postmaster in Fla got mad and BANNED the shipper from drop shipping any packages through his post office, that ANY package he shipped would have to be dropped off in person at the counter or it would be returned. He let my postmaster know what he had done and my postmaster in turn let me know. I guess that the PO there could do that because the town was so small they knew everybody.
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Cool move. The shipper deserved it.

When I was a station manager , my area was 1 square mile with 100,000 customers on a business day. We were 2 blocks north of the American Museum of Natural History. Busy territory.

We had a few problem customers. After a very short while we got to know them by name and address. They got to know me when they would come into the lobby and fuss about "poor service." :)
 
A SAK in a closed leather pouch on a belt? I can barely even put that in the same category as "knife."

C'mon....

So I'm just a naive American who hasn't joined the hive yet? :)
 
A couple of Canadians at a knife show wanted to buy two swords, but they said they couldn't take them over the border when they returned, and that shipping them could be problematic. I said, "well hell, I should just take a trip to Canada with some tools and some billets and make two swords there!"

Blade-making vacation!
 
Mecha said:
A couple of Canadians at a knife show wanted to buy two swords, but they said they couldn't take them over the border when they returned, and that shipping them could be problematic. I said, "well hell, I should just take a trip to Canada with some tools and some billets and make two swords there!"

Blade-making vacation!
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A lot of Canadians think that swords (or sharp swords) cannot cross the border.
A lot of Canadians are wrong. :cool:
 
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