Richard Jernigan -> RE: Needs some advise (Brazilian Rosewood context) (Oct. 28 2015 3:09:20)
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Brazilian rosewood is legal to sell across international borders only if it was cut before going on the CITES list. You can move it across borders only if you have proof that it is pre-CITES, and you can import it into the US only if you comply with the Lacey Act, filling out all the paperwork. That said, I have read that the Customs Service, etc. are not going after personal instruments. But that could change at any instant, and you would take a risk by breaking the law. I have a spruce/Brazilian Contreras from 1991, which is pre-CITES for Brazilian, but the only evidence is the label in the guitar. It doesn't leave the USA. When I ordered my classical from Abel Garcia in 2006, I asked him his opinion about wood for back and sides. He has published book on guitar making woods with a Mexican university press. He said he could make just as good a guitar from cocobolo, Indian rosewood or palo escrito. After a fairly long dissertation on wood, he concluded by saying that in his opinion, using Brazilian rosewood was "like putting jewelry on the guitar." I told him I was old school and asked whether he had any Brazilian that was CITES certified. He said he did and I picked out a set. I forget the additional charge. It was at least several hundred bucks, maybe as much as $1000. The guitar was imported into the USA before the Lacey Act was amended in 2008 to cover wood, so the Customs Service was no problem, but the CITES papers are in a safe deposit box at the bank. The rest of the guitars are cypress, cocobolo, Indian, etc. The only risk to the older guitars might be a bridge or a head veneer. The cedar/cypress '67 Ramirez is the travel guitar, and I would claim that neither the head veneer nor the bridge is Brazilian. Slightly O.T.: In 2010 I bought furniture in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It was made in Denmark in the 1960s, described as "Brazilian Rosewood." The dining table and eight chairs are solid, the sideboard is veneered. It looks like Brazilian to me, and if it is, it is certainly pre-Cites. After all, it was the Scandinavian furniture makers that used up all the Brazilian rosewood, not guitar makers. I asked the furniture dealer whether he had problems with U.S. Customs. He said their usual method was to load up a van, drive to Bellingham, Washington and ship from there. He said they had one van load held up at the border in 2008, right after the Lacey Act was amended. They hired a wood biologist from a Canadian university and proved that it wasn't really Brazilian rosewood. Smoke and mirrors in the furniture business 50 years ago. So I have my doubts about what my dining room furniture is really made of. If they came and took it away, I would hire someone to have a look at it, on the chance that it might not really be Brazilian rosewood. I like it, but I'm not nearly as attached to it as I am to certain guitars. RNJ
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