International shipments 2020 New rules

[Henk]

I studied the new postal rates of Post nl and found the following statement: Goods can no longer be sent abroad in a letter but must be sent as a package. The rate for this is € 7,50 (up to 350 grams) or € 9,00 (up to 2 kg) if within the EUR1 zone. This means that sending a small coin or token or even a postage stamp abroad will cost € 7,50 instead of just € 1,50 (letter up to 20 grams). Quite an increase! This makes it impossible to sell a coin with a value of say € 5 to someone abroad. I assume this same rule also applies in other countries (it is stated to be an international rule, probably the international postal union)

Has anyone else noticed this?

I am wondering if the EU agrees because this is a serious impediment to international (European) trade as someone in Germany can sell a coin to a german collector for € 5 plus € 0,80 postage. While someone in NL has to pay € 7,50 postage (instead of € 1,50 which is already much more than the postal rate in Germany).

I am interested to hear your opinion!

[eurocoin]

Although it is correct, I had not heard about this before. PostNL has done no effort whatsoever to make these new rules clear so I will just consider them to not exist as almost no-one in the Netherlands will know about this anyway. Also I expect that PostNL will not start checking letters for their contents.

[Figleaf]

I suspect that this is a consequence of a recent spat in UPU on "terminal dues", that is part of Trump's trade wars.

Peter