Moving to Thailand..Customs Etc

[Green Nomad]

I was wondering if there are any people on the forum who have sold up in UK or Europe and 'moved' house, or rather the contents, to Thailand.
I have a house for sale in Spain, and this year, if I can sell it, am looking to move a number of boxes of personal effects by air to Thailand/Hua Hin.

Recently, me and my wife bought some arabian carpets here in Oman, as they are better quality and cheaper than in Thailand, but ended up being stung very heavily for import tax, 6000B. But these were new items so could be the reason why.
My question is, if you are bringing in personal household items ie- photos, CDs, albums, ornaments etc etc.. would you have to pay the same sort of tax penalty, I understand having to pay airport handling fees and the like, but what about tax?

[Green Nomad]

Apologies, have just found a link on the Expat Hua Hin website stating the rules and limitations on importing items.
As my wife lived with me in Spain on a residence visa, and she is a Thai national, some items maybe exempt tax.

[margaretcarnes]

Pleased you've already found some info there, and hope it helps. Shipping stuff though sould be cheaper (and will of course take longer - around 4 weeks from Europe.) You can still get stung for charges to release the goods from the docks, but with a Thai wife to help out - and have any shipments addressed to her BTW - it might be much easier to avoid excessive fees.
I have shipped a box full of CDs, photos etc myself in the past, so understand these things can be precious. But just a thought - can you just go digital with everything instead? Or at least ditch all the CD cases and use those zip cases for the discs -- much easier and more portable.

[Green Nomad]

Ok Thanks margaretcarnes.

Have actually considered leaving my records behind , reducing the CDs into those wallet cases and basically try to be as brutal as I can with our stuff, we have now set up a new home in Hua Hin, so maybe no problem.

Other items that I am not sure what to do with, is my late fathers stamp collection, the stamp club he belonged to in Spain have managed to sell most. I have kept the more valuable albums he had for future 'investment'. I am reluctant to take them to Thailand, actually want to lock them away somewhere, unless someone out there is prepared to pay good money for them.

Before anyone asks, no I have no other family, am leaving Spain for good after our family lived there for over 20 years, so Thailand here I come.

Any suggestions will be welcome.

[margaretcarnes]

Hmmm - a potentially valuable stamp collection - tricky one. Personally I would be very cautious about exposing it to the humidity of LOS. Even with aircon at home there may be times you are away - or power cuts - not to mention the bugs.
You might find a decent dealer in Bangkok, but having seen a lot of clearly ex expat collectables on night market stalls in LOS I'd be very doubtful about getting the true value there. Up to you of course but I'd be inclined to go to auction in Europe, or donate to a museum maybe?

[hhfarang]

You might be more likely to sell things like that for a better value on ebay. Before we relocated to Thailand, I sold thousands of dollars worth of stuff on ebay that I didn't want to bring with me. I started about six months in advance and that was in the U.S. Do they have a Spanish version of ebay? If not larger items wouldn't be worth it because of the international shipping but light and small items like collectible stamps may be worth a try. I sold some collectible coins internationally on there and it worked out well.

[PET]

I do not think Thailand and its humidity is a good place to either bring it if it is valuable or sell it.

You may be better to take some advice from Stanley Gibbons - I recently saw that this company id doing well again so perhaps the market in stamp trading is on the up.