OK, another question that I am curious about. I notice that while the majority of sellers here and on Ebay do ship internationally, a number do not and I am genuinely curious as to why not. I ask in the context of 2 scenarios.

One is when selling chips from another country. Here, I have seen a couple of UK chips that I would be interested in sold by overseas sellers (USA, but also other countries) where the seller does not ship outside of their own country. Logic would suggest that (as an example) there would be a better chance of selling a UK chip if the seller is willing to ship to the UK.

The other scenario is where I have asked about shipping where it is not usually offered. I have found an approximate 50/50 success rate in agreeing overseas shipping when I just ask. Again this is often on Ebay and perhaps my 100% feedback gives some assurance about the fact that I am a genuine buyer. Here as an example, I would have bid up to $50 on a Paris LV $5 Jeton recently - the one that I needed to fill the gap in my collection. The seller didn't want to sell overseas which I accept is entirely their choice, but they sold the jeton for $16. Is overseas shipping really so difficult that people are willing to take such a lower price on their sales?

I really am curious. Is it because of bad experiences, a lack of understanding of how to ship overseas or simply not wanting to go through the additional hassle of overseas shipping (which from my end takes maybe one extra minute to fill out the customs form?). Is there anything else I could offer in order to persuade someone to ship to me for a chip I really want? Or perhaps have people had one poor experience to a single overseas country and decided not to ship to anyone overseas as a result.

The only caveat I would add is that please don't think that the Ebay Global Shipping plan is the answer - it is such a rip-off in terms of the uplift in prices that I do steer clear of dealing with sellers who use it (a 200%+ mark-up is just not acceptable to me!)

Just curious.

Jason