Customs - bringing silver coins out of Suvarnabhumi Airport

[remorhaz]

Hello,

I've been teaching in China for several years but my first stop from the West was Thailand. My brother lives here and because I didn't know if I was going to stay or not I left a book of 140 one ounce silver coins in his safe. When I arrived there was literally no one at the customs desk (it was late at night) so there was no other option save 'nothing to declare'. The whole lot is worth about $3,000 U.S. now and consists of mostly Chinese panda silver coins, and about 20 U.S. silver eagles with a few Austrian silver coins mixed in.

I am leaving on the 27th August and would like to take these with me. I remember asking a long time ago about this and most of the comments indicated the security people would treat my coins as a 'nice gift' for themselves. Is there any paperwork I could obtain BEFORE I get to the airport to prevent that possibility?

thanks!

[CodyB]

Just put them in your wallet and prepared it's acquired shrapnel? Just tell them it's the same as a 5 baht coin.

[remorhaz]

Thanks - I did take the coins out and there wasn't a problem. They showed up like a sore thumb on the scanner of course but customs and security was fine with it, much more polite that I expected. They identified my bag and asked who it belonged too and I said it was mine. The agent politely asked what was inside and I told the truth - '140 one ounce silver coins - mostly Chinese panda coins'. I did say I wanted to sell them in Thailand but couldn't get the price I wanted which was also true. He brought my bag over to a table and asked me to open it - in the U.S. they would have taken a razor to it and ruined the bag and of course been very rude and intimidating. So I opened it up, showed him the coins, told him the approx. price in U.S. dollars (~$3,000) and no issue.

I actually had more of an issue (if you can call it that) when I brought them into China although they were very polite and accomodating as well. There wasn't any problem per say they just looked at them longer and made a little note on a form. On both ends there was never the sense that I was going to lose anything to graft or a bribe. I was most relieved.