I was calculating postage for a letter to Germany using the USPS’s web site, and I was curious what I was specifically prohibited from mailing. This page (from the USPS) lists, among other reasonable things like radioactive materials and human remains:
A Google search revealed a large Internet community of playing card collectors and traders, and some info on historic German playing card tax stamps. Are playing cards regulated for tax reasons in Germany? Why couldn’t I mail the ace of spades to my friend in Hannover if I wanted?
Google-assisted WAG: a number of countries (from Malaysia to the Dutch Antilles) have import duty on playing cards - I guess charging this on an incomplete deck is as impossible as taxing a half-drunk bottle of whisky. However, I can’t find anything actually linking this to the situation in Germany.
Here is the full list of what the USPS says you cannot mail to Germany:
I believe that playing cards in Germany are taxed and each pack requires a stamp on the outside, so perhaps an open pack is thought to be a way of avoiding paying the tax.
More to the point, the red dye used for the Diamonds and Hearts on some cards is explosive. I beleive one prision inmate commited suicide by cutting all the red “parts” from his deck, put it into a tube, and blew himself up.
The issue is with American authorities and not the Germans. The only people claiming cards are prohibited are Americans or the USPS. German customs makes no mention of the issue.
I’d say it’s a bureaucratic bumble. Some little USPS apparatchik was reading a site like the SDMB, read a rumour and enacted a ruling in a funny little demonstration of self propagating crap.
I think they just forgot to update this for 23 years. Until 1981 there was a Spielkartensteuer (playing card tax):
fewer than 3 layers of paper: 0.30 DM
3 or more layers: 0.50 DM
Any material but paper: 1.50 DM
Decks of no more than 24 cards: -50%
Decks of more than 48 cards: +50%
1 DM equals ca. $0.60 at todays exchange rates, and of course we had our share of inflation over the decades.
The law required that playing cards could only be imported in complete decks (with exceptions for antique cards and cards for trivia games…) and obviously the tax had to be paid.
Nowadays there shouldn’t be a problem with mailing cards but since changes in the playing card tax sector don’t make world wide headlines, nobody bothered to update the list so far.
I’m not so sure about that kellner. The imposition of a tax doesn’t mean a good’s import is prohibited. In fact, on the contrary, I’d infer that the tax allows for legal importation.
The web page I found the info about the Steuer also says it was dropped because it didn’t collect much revenue and to simplify administration. Not because partial pack importation was decriminalised.
I know. It went the way of the match tax, the acetic acid tax and others.
Yes, it did - but only complete decks. Because it was abolished back in the pre-digital era and I don’t have access to a library today, I haven’t found the text of the law. However the Federal Bureau of Statistics says that:
“Dabei durften Spielkarten nur verpackt als vollständige Spiele aus dem Herstellungsgebiet entfernt oder in das Erhebungsgebiet eingeführt und dort umgesetzt werden. Sie mußten außerdem in bestimmter Weise gekennzeichnet sein.” -
“Then Playing cards were only allowed to be removed from the area of manufacture or imported to the area of imposition [of the tax i.e. Germany] and transacted there packaged as whole decks. Furthermore they had to be marked in a particular way.” Cite (German)
What does Melatonin look like. I did a test a while back trying to find your ‘body drug of choice’ eg seratonin, adrenalin, insulin etc. Mine was Melatonin because I need lots of sleep to function at full energy. How would you a. extract it, b. carry it?
The stuff I have is small white tablets. You can find them in the herb/natural medicine aisle of just about any drugstore or grocery store. That’s why I was surprised to see it on the list.
William Poundstone in Big Secrets says it’s possible, but extremely unlikely. It’s possible because back in the days of uncoated playing cards the red dye contained diazo compounds, which could potentially react with glycerin to produce a nitroglyercin-esque substance. Whether enough dye is present on the spot cards to actually produce an explosive is open to question. (I have some uncoated playing cards, but you will have to pry them from my cold, dead hands to cut those ones up!)
However, it’s highly unlikely that a prisoner could have made a bomb like this. Poundstone also says that you need a detonator such as potassium permanganate. Where would a jailed man find that?
