German Customs Law and Peanut Butter Balls.

So, some weeks ago, my parents sent me a package of various things. Top of my list was reeds for my oboe, which are ridiculously expensive in Gemany, and my reed-working kit, which I don't really know how to use, but would in theory allow me to make them better. My mother added to these some random things, like gloves and my nice Rotary sweatshirt, which I had forgotten, and yet more pins for exchanging. I now have over two hundred pins for a district of maybe 75 exchange students. I'm making friends, but not that quickly!

The best thing by far promised in this packet, though, was the peanut butter balls. Peanut butter balls are a strange snack made of peanut butter, oatmeal, and honey mixed together into a sort of dough, than rolled in coconut flakes. Very simple, and absolutely delicious. Strangely, though, I hadn't had any in years. They were a common feature of my preschool days, but had been somehow forgotten about as the years went on. Now that I'm in Germany, my mother seems to be remembering all sorts of cool stuff.

This is all great, but instead of a package arriving punctually last week, we received an envelope telling us that the package was in Koblenz, and would be returned to sender if we did not visit it within the week and pay a tariff of 19% on it's stated value of $150. What was up? Are peanut butter balls a restricted substance in Germany?

A phone call (made, thankfully, by my host mother) cleared things up. My package was supposed to be considered a gift, but due to the high labeled worth, the customs people had a look inside. Inside, they saw the pins. "Hmm..." they thought to themselves "who gives 100 identical pins as a gift? This David Loring fellow must want to sell these California pins without having to pay import tariff, and undercut good German california-pin businesses!" and so they held on to it.

All was not lost, however. My host mother was able to explain the concept of a rotary blazer, and pin exchanges, to the customs man on the phone, and he agreed that it sounded like a real gift, and would look inside with us when we got there and re-estimate the value, probably under the 45 euro tax-free threshold. And today, I drove with my host-Grandparents to the office in Koblenz, and retrieved my booty.