Has anyone ordered a Tsar Bomba directly from overseas?

Ordered mine from a seller in Singapore back in March. Took 19 days door to door, no extra fees. The tracking went dead for about a week in the middle which was fun.

Depends entirely on the carrier. DHL will hit you with a customs bill before delivery, regular post usually slides through. Which one are they using?

I'd ask the seller to delcare it properly. Mine came marked as a 'watch component' with a value of like 40 bucks and it still got held for two weeks. Not worth the headache to save a few percent.

the name of this watch is doing a lot of heavy lIfting for a skeleton dial lol

Mine arrived with the rotor loose. Seller offered a partial refund but shipping it back would've cost more than the watch. Check the movement as soon as you open the box, don't wait a month.

19 days is optimistic from my experience. I waited almost six weeks from a Chinese marketplace seller and the box looked like it had been used as a football.

Six weeks usually means it sat in customs limbo rather than transit. You can sometimes call the depot and nudge it along if you have the tracking number.

what did you end up paying in total if you don't mind me asking? I keep getting quoted wildly different numbers from different sellers for what looks like the same reference.

Mine was around 480 all in, including the shipping. I've seen the same thing liated at 700 from a 'boutique' reseller, which is just the same watch with a nicer box.

This ^. The markup on these is wild. The skeleton itself is decent for the price but the box and paperwork are not worth an extra 200.

anyone else notice these sellers never have the same photos twice? every listing looks like it was shot in a different basement

That's because half of them are drop shipping from the same factory. Ask for a video of the actua unit before you pay, not the stock clip.

Also worth checking if they'll ship with the bracelet off. Mine came loose in the box and scratched the caseback pretty badly during transit.

ok the bracelet tip is actually useful, hadn't thought of that