>.. probably because seek() or other record-accessing functions respect the current set("collate"), not the one used when the index was created. ..

As I understand the OP, he creates the table, and some lines later the COPY TO fails. So SET COLLATE should not change

>Now if you don't use any collations... where do ö, ü and ä appear in your lists? In their proper places or...?

German Umlaut and ß runs perfectly well on MACHINE. And for anything I need to search for, there is no index anyway. User create odd combinations, can't have an index on any possible. All index is on integers and some boolean to speed up SQL SELECT. I never work table sided. Maybe an index on the fly to order, but rarely on DESCRIPTION fields, the only one where one would use this letters. The rest is main frame compatible codes out of the days of yore, no danger that it is not in [A..Z\d\-/\.,]+