NavList:

Alan S, you wrote:
"I don't know if there were additional bank fees for changing dollars to marks, always a possibility."

I can loan you my time machine for the weekend. Then you can go back in time a generation --twenty years ago is when the deutsche mark was replaced by the euro. :) Heh. Better yet, instead of travelling back 20 years, make it 75. Bring a big cardboard box and hit the trash bins at an airfield in England. I'm sure they were tossed out in large numbers after the war. Grab yourself 500 A-5 computers, and you can sell them on ebay to support yourself for a few years back in the present!

But to your question on currency exchange: there are small fees, but they are hidden in the exchange rate that you pay, and those exchange rates are generally quite favorable in modern digital transactions. Basically you just give them your credit card details, and it all happens seamlessly. Really easy. If you can find something you really want from an overseas vendor, shipping costs are a concern, but you can ignore exchange rates.

By the way, my time machine also travels through space, so, if you can figure out the navigation, you could just hop over to Germany in the present to complete your purchase and save on postage without risking the temporal apocalypse of the "butterfly effect". :) 

Frank Reed