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I just got some wood and one of the sets was a top labeled "German" which is what I usually use but this piece is more amber colored than what I am used to (after sanding the corner down a bit). In the picture, the top piece is a new piece of German that I got from Luthiers Merc. so I am certain it is real German, the next piece down is an old piece of Engelman that I sanded a bit to expose the underlying wood. The last piece (bottom of the pile) is the piece in question.. The piece in question is also a little more floppy across the grain than what I am used to. It does have a fair amount of bearclaw in it which I am used to...

One thing making this difficult is that the piece in question is older (5 years) as is the Engelman (20 years). The German on top was recently purchased.

Any thoughts? It was labeled German but I don't know by whom and I do not know how many people try to pass of Engelman as German..

Thanks much, Peter Z

Impossible to tell from that image. Telling apart German and Engelmann is very difficult, and color is not really relevant. Both range from milk white to buttery. Density and grain counts overlap almost perfectly. The only thing that can make me form an opinion is seeing a planed surface in real, and it should be well quartered. I think in general the medullary rays of Engelman look somewhat different. In the end I feel they are somewhat smaller. European spruce rays are larger by about the same amount as Sitka's rays are larger than European's. I also think that the sapwood of Engelman tends to have a more repulsive smell when compared to Euro.

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Build log

The Englemann tops being passed as German swindle has always sounded a bit like a conspiracy theory to me, and I've never read or seen proof of it, with facts, names and so on. It seems it keeps re-appearing from time to time although the presumed and unknown miscreants misbehaved a long time ago. I suspect it comes from the same source pretending there are no more spruces in Germany.
I've seen German in every shape, form and shades of white and off-white, some resembling the purest Englemann, and some easily mistaken for some rough red spruce.
The only spruce sometimes recognisable by eye is sitka because of the grain structure and colour, and again sometimes, exceptions abound.
The only way to find out is to have samples looked through a microscope by a lab.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I'm working with an old Euro top (cut in the '60s, I think) now that is very dark indeed. In fact, I put a soundhole patch of Sitka from the mid 70's on it, and the top and the patch are almost exactly the same color.

I've talked with a couple of folks over the years who claimed some expertise in wood identification, and they've said that it's just about impossible to tell the different species of spruce apart reliably, even with a hand lens. In the end, spruce is spruce, and you have to go more by what the piece does than the species.

The only way to know for sure is if your there when the tree is cut down and then follow thru as it's processed into soundboards.
Maybe if we all learned to call all Euro Spruce (picea abies) Euro Spruce it would make everyone's life much easier. Over time spruce can get pretty dark.

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Maybe the reason it is an older and darker piece of spruce (german or otherwise) is because it is floppy, and no one wanted to use it.

I was always under the understanding that Sitka was the only spruce of the type luthiers most often use that can be positively identified (by magnification or visually) and that others are pretty much impossible without needles or cones attached or included. Trust is what it comes down to in most cases.

The problem is that I've seen plenty of Sitka that was just as white as any Euro or Engelmann when it was freshly cut. Maybe there is a difference that shows under the microscope, but, again, I've been told there is not.

The old piece of Euro that I'm working with came, if what I'm told is correct, from a very old stash of wood, accumulated by a maker who bought a lot when it was less expensive, and has not used it all up yet. The density and stiffness are fine by modern standards, but maybe not as good as the real nice old stuff in the rest of the stash.