OT: Transporting Coins
harasha
Posts: 3,098 ✭✭✭✭✭
An acquaintence of mine needs to transport gold coins interstate. These appear to be the contents of a safe deposit box so there may be a few of them. How do you transport such a lot? I suspect that a carry-on, if you are flying, is not practical. What do vendors do?
Honors flysis Income beezis Onches nobis Inob keesis
DPOTD
DPOTD
0
Comments
this might sound dumb, but if it's only a couple 1ks worth, couldn't you just ship to the destination insured?
I have no idea how dealers do it.. professional security service ?
<< <i>I suspect that a carry-on, if you are flying, is not practical. >>
If the lot is not too heavy, it's not really a problem to take as carry-on baggage- you just need to be prepared for what's going to happen when you go through security. When they x-ray the bag, they'll almost certainly want to check it out. You should ask for a private screening, and they'll take you into a room away from the general screening area where they will look through the bag while you watch. The main thing is to be ready to ask *right away* for a private screening before they start questioning you about the bag, or opening it up in front of everybody.
For extra-strength paranoia, you might want to wait until the person immediately ahead of you in line has passed completely through the metal detector without incident and it's your turn before you put your bag with the coins on the conveyor. Once the bag has gone into the x-ray machine, you can go through the metal detector, making sure you're not carrying anything that will get you stopped by setting off the alarm. That way, the bag is never on one side of the gate while you're on the other. Once on the plane, put the bag under the seat in front of you. And don't let the bag out of your sight even for a minute anywhere along the line.
I've flown over a dozen times while carrying coins in a computer laptop bag, and this has always worked for me. I guess I should add a disclaimer, though- I can't guarantee that this process will work the same everywhere, for everybody.
Have flown with $50k worth of coins in the past couple of months. Always carried on. Never had a bag inspected. No problem whatever. Just heavy lugging through large airports.
DPOTD