Looking around on various sites, mostly ebay, i always think the best titles seem to be in the states.

Most 16mm features from the USA are probably ex TV prints. There must have been hundreds of such stations across the country. Thousands of black and white prints were available to buy many years ago when their TV stations turned to colour transmissions.

I agree with you Tom; I think about half of my features have come from the U.S., titles that are never seen here.

Got to agree there Tom,but it’s becoming so expensive at present to import it almost makes you wonder if it’s worth even bothering with.
Looking around at the moment anything decent here usually commands a high price maybe things will improve when film fairs can start again with redistribution of a few films.
As Maurice says the states was a great source of material at one time and there was quite a few private individuals selling,they seem few and far between these days.
Hopefully things here will get better soon.

100% agree Gwyn, I've seen a few titles i would like to have bid on but the postage, followed by the import tax just makes it almost ridiculous. We have been lucky on a few prints but lately people with more money than sense appear to be prepared to pay the most stupid sums of money for prints that are sometimes red or scratched, or both. It is amazing how the postage rates almost seem to to be made up at random, in some cases two or three times the price of the print, with the import charges adding almost the same again in many cases.
I think some sellers are just clueless or simply greedy.

I’m in full agreement Tom,prices are all over the place with some silly prices being asked .
Still maybe it’s a symptom of the pandemic affecting even this hobby.

I believe it's Ebay that sets postage rates, yet I noticed that one seller, selling 16mm features, 2x1600ft spools, had varying amounts of postage to the UK. Another seller had reasonable postage costs via the GSP, about £30 - £38 I think, then suddenly it went to around £100, then weeks later back to the original price. I've stopped looking at Ebay U.S.

eBay has guides on postage but this can be easily altered by the seller,
You never know Gwyn. It is bazaar what some people pay for a title. Looking recently, a flat, (but good) print of raiders of the lost ark on 16mm went for just over £1800.00 and a flat print of Raise the titanic went for over £600. Both of these prints were sold from the US.
As an added note, looking around on ebay from the states side, those who sell via ebays postal system do seem to have fair prices for both import and postage. The silly ones are where the seller assumingly organises there own postage, an extreme example is a title that had shipping for a 2 x 160 feature of $150 + import. It could be designed to put off overseas bidders, but then , why not simply exclude overseas?

As another oddity for me, there is another print on ebay for sale, its a good film with with Steve Martin called Bowfinger. It is a theatrical LPP poly print but it's a bandsaw print. The idea of a splice at every turn of the spool just doesn't appeal to me one bit, no matter how good the splices are it cannot do any projector any good to put such a print through. I guess someone will be happy with it, i wonder it may sell for. At present, it is a very low £39.00 and it's here in the UK..

The one thing i will add here, all the films mentioned here all started off at a reasonable prices so these were good sales for the sellers, it seems that there is no shortage of buyers with large bank accounts,

I agree, I think the US seems to have more choices for 16mm. But for Super 8 it seems Europe is better--many nice titles coming out of Germany, for example. Of course, prices are awfully high for any quality films in either format. It does get discouraging at times. The other issue that frustrates me is the choice titles simply don't come up often. If the price goes beyond one's budget, it could be a year or more till another print pops up to have a chance again.