Now and again I get requests for musical box movement spare parts.
If it is a few-dollar part and the person is located in, for example,
the USA, I can forget it.  (The exception is if it's a good friend,
of course.)

The reason I 'forget it' is because to send a small parcel from Germany
it will cost many times more than the value of the part.  To send money
from USA to Germany it will cost in addition many times more than the
value of that part.

In the last days there have been the following requests in MMDigest:

  Seek Pinion for Cylinder Music Box Governor [MMD 020119]
  Seek Ballerina Figure for Music Box [MMD 020121]

My first thought was "Is the person located in the Euro-region,"
because in the European region a parcel is much cheaper to send -- no
need to declare it for the customs, and it's easy to send paper money
in an envelope (the new euro, of course!).

But there was no indication of the location of the requestor, neither
in the email address nor in the text.  It was only the names of the
requesting people that let me guess that they live in UK or USA.

I think you will understand why I don't start to search for it in
my collection, and to exchange emails and photos to find out if it is
the right part or not, maybe in the end to hear, "Sorry, no longer
interested; too expensive."

An example of how important it is to know the location of a person.

Kind regards from
Hauke Marxsen (Germany)