Green's Dictionary of Slang

[Victor Steinbok]

> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton<robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Green's Dictionary of Slang
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> £130 from amazon.co.uk here, though the price on the publisher's site may be
> closer to the $450 quoted by Michael above.

This is actually nice piece of news. Even with international shipping
charges, ordering the volume from AmazonUK is likely to save you well
over 1/3 of the cost. Unless AmazonUS offers a similar discount, that's
well worth the extra wait for the shipment. Most credit cards now charge
a flat 3% premium for fund conversion (standard Forex rate is 7%, banks
may charge even more), so even at the exchange rate least favorable to
the dollar /and/ including the shipping charge, it would still come in
at well under $300. Citibank and AmEx used to give American customers
the most favorable exchange rate during the billing cycle, so the
customers were protected from market fluctuations. I don't know what the
policy is now. And it was very different for some other cards (forget
about Discover in Europe!). So check with the issuing bank before making
purchases.

I've ordered books from AmazonUK before, both in the US and in Holland,
although mostly from Marketplace. Similarly, I've ordered books from
AmazonUS while in Europe. I recommend making all the calculations
carefully before you make major book purchases on Amazon, but if
AmazonUK charges their standard shipping rates for this, it's actually a
lot cheaper than sending the volumes yourself (even though Amzon
shipping within UK is free). I stress that this only applies to
books--many other categories are banned from international shipping,
even within EU (contractual obligations, not customs restrictions).

     VS-)

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