James Bond starts a new adventure this week, and MI6 has reached out to the HTS Nerd to help 007 get his Bulgarian Umbrella through Customs. The last thing Q wants is for the top agent to spend time being held up at the border when the fate of the world could hinge on even a few seconds.

So what exactly is a Bulgarian umbrella?

It’s a pneumatic gun hidden within an umbrella which uses compressed gas to fire a small poisonous pellet containing ricin, and was allegedly used in the 1978 assassination of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident writer. It was also allegedly used in a failed assassination attempt against Bulgarian journalist Vladimir Kostov in the same year.

A spirited debate at the Compliance League offered several intriguing possibilities. Captain Sanction believed that, at the most basic level, it was still an umbrella. The Deemed Export Dynamo Twins  suggested it might even be a medical device. With so many possibilities, where’s a classification superhero to turn?

To the Regulatron 3000 and the HTSUS!

Let’s start with the basic question: what are the possible headings for this item?

6601 –

Umbrellas and sun-umbrellas (including walking-stick umbrellas, garden umbrellas and similar umbrellas)

OR, IS IT…

9304 –

Other arms (for example, spring, air or gas guns and pistols, truncheons), excluding those of heading 9307: Pistols, rifles and other guns which eject missiles by release of compressed air or gas, or by the release of a spring mechanism or rubber held under tension

Chapter 66 Legal Note 1 says this Chapter does not cover (b) firearm-sticks, sword-sticks, loaded walking sticks or the like. Chapter 93 does not have any such exclusions.

In a follow-up call with 007 himself, though, he let it slip that Q had sent him with the very same Bulgarian Umbrella used to assassinate Markov. Everyone knows that the HTS Nerd’s kryptonite is incomplete information – and this little nugget changes everything!

Chapter 93 Legal Note 1(f) does exclude collectors pieces or antiques, and given the historical significance of the item, our Bulgarian Umbrella is instead classified using GRI 1 through the provisions of GRI 6 as:

9705 –

Collections and collectors’ pieces of zoological, botanical, mineralogical, anatomical, historical, archeological, paleontological, ethnographic or numismatic interest

All I can say is that I am relieved that I didn’t have to classify 007’s rectal tool kit!