Official Luthiers Forum!

Just think of how much a BRW guitar made from 'The Tree' is gonna go for

Gotta love our lawmakers.

Yes, I understand about threads going south! I don't want to contribute to that-

Aaron, have you ever heard of wood or guitars getting a certificate that did not have a clear paper trail? That is my big concern. I will accept it if much or all of my/our stashes are instantly devalued but I might be bitter for a while

I operated under the "within the US" regulation and was OK with that. I figured most of my clients would be here anyway and wood that I could personally feel extremely confident about being antique I did not hesitate to buy, even knowing I could not produce a receipt. I imagine many others did the same.

They list the antique exemption at 100 years - plenty of guitars in there where the company no longer exists, the date can't be verified anyway and it has been sold since then. That's a pretty big grey area. Maybe they will be understanding about it, I hope so!

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

The solution is an easy one -- prevent all import and export of CITES 1 material, period. In other words, even with paperwork these materials can't enter or leave the US. The situation is then very clear cut regarding whether imported material is legal because it never will be.

This will be a difficult thing for me -- I am nearly finishing up a $10k guitar with a set of Brazilian I bought from Steve Roberson of Colonial Tonewoods -- it was cut in the 60's but Steve let the CITES master file for all his BRW expire. If what Chuck says is true then I have just lost the labor/time/money from this guitar as well as another BRW I have just started (same deal, legal BRW from Steve). The paperwork trail is a nightmare and discourages folks from doing it. The solution should be simple and effective. The same thing should be done for Ivory -- no more bringing it into the country but let the citizens do what they want to do with the material that is already here.

The one thing I have never been able to figure out is how to you verify that a unique C.I.T.E.S. cert applies to a specific piece of wood, ivory, shell, etc.?
I have paperwork for both B.R. and Mahogany and for a specific number of sets. If my permit says 16 sets of B.R. and I have 100 in the rack, which 16 does it apply to? That would pertain for buying as well as selling. I don't have photographs ( hope no one is getting any ideas ) of each individual piece that is attached to the permits. How is that supposed to work?

Here are a few examples.
Years ago I was in a friends shop and he had some E.I. that had a C.I.T.E.S. permit. It was enough material for a nut and saddle and the permit covered a set number of pounds of raw material. The permit was protected by a plastic protector pouch. It was a copy. Anybody could have run down to the local copy shop and run off multiple copies, and the person selling the nut and saddle obviously had as he sold the material off piece by piece. A person would almost have to if they were making multiple objects out of the original material.
I bought a new SCGC OM a few years back that had heavily figured, as in stumpwood, B.R. When I put a picture up on one of the online forums some guy offered to buy it from me. I sold it to the guy who kept it for 3 years and then he put it back up for sale. I ultimately found its' way to Europe, where that buyer put it back up to sale again with a C.I.T.E.S permit. Not only was I the original owner of the guitar I also am good friends with the person originally who provided all the wood for the guitar. There was no C.I.T.E.S. when I bought or resold the guitar but somehow after finding its way to Europe it appears with paperwork. When I inquired what the cost of the guitar was new the European quoted me a price over double what I had originally paid.
While not C.I.T.E.S. this one still has to do with import/export. At one time I was making high tech parts for a major U.S. Corp. with subsidiaries in Malaysia. The parts I was making were from a material that was listed as strategic in this country and was restricted for movement in and out of the country. The mill that was my normal, and only U.S. supplier had a backlog of 3 years to make the material as the computer industry had tied there raw material up to make the latest and greatest. When I notified the Corp. of the lack of material they sent me some that was made in New Zealand and routed through China. Upon opening the crate I saw where the paperwork listed the material as iron samples. Not only was I upset that the delivery Co. had left $20k worth of material sitting on the porch of my shop where the homeless regularly slept, but the paperwork was, for lack of a better description, wrong.

I can see where the government should be able to track materials coming and going from this country. They obviously did so in the case of Gibson several years ago. Aside from tracking the known material with a known C.I.T.E.S. or import/export cert, how could they ever tell what paperwork matches what material?
The paperwork that Aaron linked to, on first glance, looks to be for import/export and not pertaining to sales within the U.S. Perhaps this will change in the future.

And to think I gave up my shop after 35 years because I was tired of all the government paperwork. Why I figured making guitars would be different is beyond me. What is really scary is that B.R and E.I were the first ones on C.I.T.E.S. what is going to happen with tall the other materials in the future?
Tim

Looks like I picked the wrong week to get going on these spec guitars.

Very pretty pair James.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

jaw dropping, in fact.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Nice veneer....Steelstring or Classical...what are you using in the middle layer?

Oops, didn't mean to hijack... the backs are BRW veneered over spruce like a lot of 19th century romantic guitars were (these are loosely based on some of those old designs). One is x-braced for steel strings, one is fan braced for nylon strings.

Back on topic: I have a decent BRW stash, but it pales in comparison to my piles of Honduran rosewood and cocobolo... I can live with the BRW becoming pretty much worthless except for personal use but I am quite wary of what this action will do to the value of my other CITES woods.

They have to prove it's Brazilian!
They are not about to deal with the lawsuits for makers saying it
can be any wood!
Prove to me what wood it is without destroying the instrument!

Kingwood & many others have similar grain patterns & colors!
There have been many So. American woods introduced
On the market in the last 20 years!
Along with So.East Asian Rosewoods!
It's their time & MONEY to prove we have REAL BRAZILIAN?

Ivory is much easier to spot!
I do NOT condone the killing of a noble beast for anything!
I have used Ivory taken off from old pianos !
The poor animal was killed in the late 1800's!
The Piano restorer was going to throw it away!!!!!!!!!!!

Gee -it's about time these lawmakers got some education
on the facts ,before making laws!
Mike

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Mike Collins

Maybe it's time we all switched to Carbon Fiber guitars. We don't have to kill anything to make them (an asteroid took care of that for us eons ago)

I am surprised with the number of people in this community who mention the impending or threatened extinction of Brazilian Rosewood or compare it to the threat facing Elephants. Brazilian Rosewood trees continue to exist in abundance and produce viable seeds. Like Redwood, the threat is to OLD GROWTH stands of forest and the habitat in which the trees thrive, but not the species itself. Still a bad thing but it is highly unlikely that the Dalbergia Nigra will cease to exist.

Mike Franks
http://www.mjfranksguitars.com

I read one Brazilian fellow's site in which he stated that there are at least two other species of Dalbergia growing side by side with D. nigra, and they are indistinguishable without DNA testing. Any body lese heard that?

Hello wbergmann,

can you provide a link or a copy of this article. I am highly interested. cheers, alex

Surely all the Brazillian in the USA must be legal
The various border control authorities would never allow entry of illegal materials, substances or individuals........would they?

I haven't dated or serial numbered a guitar in years...
Time to backdate them and distress the he!! out of them.
Seriously, how are they going to find you and your stash anyway...

Johannes Brentrup 1871-1929

Brilliant. I'd really wait to see how this boils out. A ton of conflicting info and frankly overreach in this country is rare. Except on the news cycle.

Tim

Sorry, I have no link. As I recall, the writing was on a web page of someone in Brazil selling guitar sets of various woods. I bought a set of Pau Ferra from him, but that's all. I have not run across his ads recently.

Also, I tend to agree with the comment that the feds ought not to pursue what is already here, unless they have specific proof of smuggling. The various border protections should have done a reasonable job of handling that. But, fair doesn't count.

This form only talks about re-exporting the species. What about selling guitars Stateside made of BRW?

From what I understand, only the Appendix 1 materials are of concern. SAVE ALL YOUR WOOD PURCHASE RECEIPTS -- if/when any other guitar building items move to Appendix 1, then we should be able to show pre-CITES purchase documentation and get the necessary CITES paperwork to use the items for commercial use.

I bought what little I have in 1981. Still have the receipt. None of that squirrelly stuff. Veneered that for tabletops years ago.

Tim

All true, but they can take the guitar and keep it till they decide. The cost of fighting them is prohibitive. They can even take it if they suspect it's Brazilian when it's not. You have no rights in their opinion. Took Gibson a year to get back their wood.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have a feeling that "film4" guy on Ebay is about to start selling a lot of Pau Ferro and Dalbergia Cultrata as BRW and make a ton of money doing it.

If others followed suit I wouldn't be mad. I don't actually think that these entities will follow through with anything more than "making a couple examples". However it is very difficult to DNA test and differentiate Dalbergia Nigra from Dalbergia *****. The sniff test won't hold up in court. I once wanted some questionable material tested and the only lab I could find wanted a 1" x 1" square at the minimum to test.

In short- the burden is really on them in enforcing this. I do feel bad for you guys with current builds and large stashes of this stuff.