Rock Collectors Forums » General Discussion

I have a rather unusual question concerning shipping rocks to the United States that I hope someone might be able to answer.

I live in Canada and I have a friend who collects them in the US and I wanted to bring her a collection of about 400 small rock, ore and mineral samples. At the airport, I was stopped by the US Customs officer and he flatly refused to allow me to take the rocks into the United States.

His reasons for refusal were "Rocks ARE soil and soil can be contaminated with all sorts of things so you are not permitted to bring them into the United States without the same types of certificates required for soil". Some of these rocks were from countries all over the world and could carry all sorts of contamination and since he had no way of determining if they were or not, the rocks could not go into the US.

Is anyone aware of any restrictions on bringing rocks into the United States from Canada like he claims?

Rock Collectors Forums » General Discussion

Importing rocks into the United States from Canada

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