US Customs procedures for bringing games in from Canada.

Everything that orangewhip said is great information and although he did say this I am going to reiterate that it's going to boil down to the border guard and your attitude as to how easily you get across. Someone also mentioned earlier that they had more trouble coming back into the states than they did going into Canada. I work for a trucking company and we have multiple trucks a day going into and coming out of Canada thru the same port and I have always had more trouble coming back into the US.
 
Different locations... Try living in Detroit and trying what you do there, over here. They (Canada) hate us here! :)
The question was about bringing stuff from Canada to the US...that has nothing to do with the. Canadian border. Once you are up here, you are up here....it's all about the US border bringing stuff down.

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Coming back

Only time I had an issue at Canadian border was when I forgot to print out and provide the craigslist as of game I bought in Seattle. That time rhey charged me duty which I haven't had before or since. Bottom line have your paperwork in order and be honest/courteous!
 
Thanks everyone for all the great info!

In the actual event, it went way more smoothly than I could have imagined. The Canadian Customs agent I talked to was not worried about the stuff I was bringing for trade, except he thought it was cool and wanted to chat about it for a few minutes.

Oh, and our Canadian adventure was amazingly fun. It was the first time I'd experienced BC Ferries, and the first time I'd spent any time on Vancouver Island outside of Victoria. I now totally want to take my zombie apocalypse escape vehicle/armored personnel carrier up there for some serious camping!

Once there, the big reveal:

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How far would you go for a Duramold? What if there was also a BZ Cabaret involved? (not pictured) This is a Blaster Duramold that is almost completely converted to Sinistar. The panel has not been re-drilled for any past conversions, it pretty much just needs a little wiring and the marquee and CP artwork to make it complete. I took out the power brick and monitor to move it into my basement. This next shot is exactly how it looked when it landed in my workshop area:

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Coming back, we packed the games in with the expectation that US customs would want us to unload them so they could look inside for a 20 pound bag of Heroin or something. All we got was some rapid-fire questions, mostly about who owned the van, how we knew each other, and how we knew Wldfire. The agent finished up by asking if I owned a Turtles, because that was her favorite game when she was a kid.

Her style of questioning gave me the impression that she would be a challenging person to date. :)

At the end of the string of 15 or so questions, she simply said "Have a nice day" and we were on our way.

I was never asked to produce any paperwork for anything, and didn't spend more than a couple of minutes in Customs going either way. I attribute this mainly to actually having all my ducks in a row. I'm sure if I had tried to sneak something through, or had something to hide, I would have been totally busted.

Thanks everyone for your help in getting prepared for an awesome road trip!

Oh, and this too:

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Poutine on the ferry it looks like! haha Nice. Glad I could help.

Hope Ken sent you home with a harness or 2. ;)

Did you come up with the Wooden Arcade guy? I was chatting with him at the PRGE and he said he was coming up with you to grab the cabs from Ken.
 
Poutine on the ferry it looks like! haha Nice. Glad I could help.

Hope Ken sent you home with a harness or 2. ;)

Did you come up with the Wooden Arcade guy? I was chatting with him at the PRGE and he said he was coming up with you to grab the cabs from Ken.

Poutine on a ferry... Man, you guys have it figured out up there. :)

Yeah, Jacob is one of my best friends, and there's no way I'd even THINK about such an epic road trip pickup without bringing him along!
 
Nice score, Michael! Are you going to bring it back to its Blaster origins??? We need that around here! The trek would make for a good Coin Rejects guest spot.
 
You went cross border to pick up a Rubbermaid garbage can? Thought those were made in the US...

Oh and those be some overcooked fries...
 
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Nice score, Michael! Are you going to bring it back to its Blaster origins??? We need that around here! The trek would make for a good Coin Rejects guest spot.

I'm actually going to try to finish the Sinistar conversion, mainly because Blaster kind of sucks, and Sinistar is amazing.

The Coin Rejects thing would indeed be fun!
 
We could have a side debates on the merits of Blaster vs. Sinistar...though I'd need to actually play Sinistar first.
 
Only border trouble I ever had was in college. We get stopped at he boarder agent asks if we have any drugs. Buddy in back asks "What do you need?" Had to empty car of all camping gear. 3 hours later back on the road.
 
I went across the border from Aldergrove (Vancouver area) yesterday to pick up a couple CPS2 games and some Intellivision items. I brought paypal receipts in case and told the customs officer that I bring back $230 USD worth of goods back into Canada. They didn't charge me any customs fees and the conversation only lasted 125 seconds.

I don't have any kind of criminal record and am always honest about my plans on my way down. Since moving near the border, I've actually brought across lots of stuff I buy from U.S. sellers who won't ship to Canada and have never had to pay customs charges.
 
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