My first, very first internet purchase through eBay, was in 199? . Canadian dollar was an all time low, worth about 55 cents US. My first auction win was for this .99 cent multicoloured porcelain B-hive. Just ever so nice and still my number one favourite porcelain. Postage was $5.50 US to Canada. So about $10 Cdn. No PayPal, so payment went by letter mail - International stamp, add another dollar. The one and only time it ever happened to me, this package was charged a $5 Customs Inspection fee. Had not heard about this fee before or since, and just what it was all about is still a mystery. Anyway, all in, this $1 insulator cost a total of $16 to put in my window. Back in them days that was almost 1/2 a days pay for a lot of people.

Following this a few years later was this second purchase which was also educational, as opposed to a Fail experience. Both of these could have turned out a little more in my favour.

I had purchased several porcelain insulators from a seller in Australia. I don't remember exactly, maybe $35 for the insulators and $40 for postage. The Post Office sent notice when it arrived indicating that taxes were due. I'm thinking what taxes? Turns out this guy thought he was doing me a favour. Since up to $200 insurance was include with the postage, that's what he declared the value for; in case it got lost I'd come out ahead. And to further my education, instead of identifying it as 'used, porcelain' he wrote 'pottery'. My understanding, after I paid the duty and excise taxes on $200 worth of pottery, was that porcelain, new or used, had no excise tax, I would have paid on declared value. Had the seller declared the package as $35 value and porcelain insulators, there would have been no import costs. The insulators, important to me then, now, I can't even remember which ones they were.