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Needs some advise (Brazilian Rosewood context)
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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 RE: Needs some advise (Brazilian Ros... (in reply to Neotriz)
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I´m sorry to hear that you didnt know what you bought. The Luthier should have told you and he´s looking for trouble selling the guitar to some one from outside the European Union.
So-----Stop.
If the wood doesnt have CITES papers, dont take it anywhere. In the US, there´s a good chance its gonna be confiscated and its a crime to change papers etc and from my information it is being taken pretty serious.
It might not be Braz rosewood, but you will not know. Looks doesnt tell you anything and even smell cant be trusted.
Some 8 - 10 years ago, Spanish Guardia Civil blocked the sale of a wood called "Caviuna" that Maderas Barber stocked. It looked like and smelled 100% like Dalberghia Nigra. I have a few small pieces that i wont use because it may cause trouble
After making laberatory test, the wood was found not to be Dalberhia Nigra and released. This is just to tell how difficult it might be to check wood.
The whole Braz rosewood situation is rotten. Its looking for trouble dealing with it. Its a bag full of trouble, cheating, scam, problems. Guitars made of dump sounding pretty Southamerican woods and sold as Braz rosewood...Its Lutherie when its worst. (or like the rest of the world).
If the builder cant give you CITES papers, I would return the guitar and tell the builder to give you the money back. If he refuses, I would tell him that it would mean contacting Guardia Civil and your US lawyer. It is illegal to deal with Brazilean Rosewood without CITES papers. How long you in reality want to go with this is up to you, but there´s a good chance that he will give you the money back (and hate you afterwards when he should hate himself for being the bad guy)
The spanish, incl. the guitarbuilders have to wake up and understand that there´s a world that works differently outside their little mumbojumbo and that this other world has consequenses even for themselves. They cant just continue saying "no pasa nada". There are no excuses anymore. All builders know what is going on. Its an OLD story.
_____________________________
Blog: http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com/
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Date Oct. 26 2015 7:08:53
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Needs some advise (Brazilian Ros... (in reply to Morante)
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quote:
I have been told that a guitar send by Fedex? would arrive safely, Spain to USA. Send it to yourself.
FedEx has the capability of and provides the service of expediting the instrument through US Customs as part of the delivery. It costs five to seven times as much as regular postal service and is subject to a bogus added on fuel surcharge that regular mail delivery does not add on.
The Fed Ex agents see that the item is taken through US Customs as a priority, and if the item is inspected they repack it, but Fed EX has no authority to stop US Customs from expecting the same legal paperwork for Brazilian rosewood.
In the end FedEx is a bit of a rip off, just to let people who want to send guitars know. The Fed Ex charges more than regular mail service, much more to the point of being abusive. And the regular mail service and Fed Ex items travel on the same aircraft, the freight of regular mail is consolidated and contracted to Fed EX as an international freight carrier. So that means all freight it arrives at it's destination at the same time. The service Fed Ex is providing is moving freight through customs and straight to home delivery. They have a kind of customs broker status that allows them to move their freight through customs independently. That is the service you are paying five times more for.
Going out of the US, US Postal Service is reliable, trackable and much cheaper, and goes just as fast as Fed EX. The only advantage is the country of destination may have a poor delivery system and complicated Customs procedure, Fed Ex will expedite though local customs and in company deliver without local freight handlers getting in the way.
Going into the US Fed Ex will expedite through Customs, but they have no power to bend laws or move illegally purchased agricultural goods. Wood is an agricultural product. And USPS now has a fast customs procedure.
In the end Fed Ex gives no advantage in the shipping of a CITES regulated agricultural product.
Shipping a Brazilian rosewood guitar without the proper papers is always going to be a calculated risk. You can never be sure who will be on duty in the customs booth that day.
And say you do luck out and get a Brazilian rosewood guitar into the US, the guitar is illegal and can't be taken across state borders legally or resold.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Oct. 27 2015 0:57:17
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3464
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Needs some advise (Brazilian Ros... (in reply to Neotriz)
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I think you should request the seller to either provide you with a valid CITES certificate or demand your money back. You might need to engage an attorney, but it should be easy to demonstrate that the seller knowingly sold you (unbeknownst to yourself) a Brazilian Rosewood guitar. It is unconscionable that Brazilian Rosewood is CITES-listed as endangered wood, and yet a maker and seller continue to use it. They should be fined, and fined heavily.
And I don't think much of the idea of trying to sneak illegal Brazilian Rosewood into the United States or anywhere else. This is beautiful wood that is endangered. To support the illegal trafficking of such wood by trying to clandestinely ship it into the U.S. is not only illegal, it is morally obtuse as well. How many people trying to ship illegal Brazilian Rosewood into the U.S. would aid and abet the killing of rhinos for carvings made of their horn? Or the killing of elephants for their ivory tusks? Or the killing of tigers for their body parts considered to be potent medicine? Or catching sharks for their fins and throwing them back into the ocean alive to drown?
At one time I loved shark's fin soup. I used to eat it every time I found myself either passing through or staying in Hong Kong. But when you know how the fins are taken, it sours the taste. I stopped eating shark's fin soup long ago. I see no reason to illegally try and import a beautiful, disappearing wood like Brazilian Rosewood into the U.S., any more than I can condone the killing of rhinos, elephants, tigers, or sharks for their perceived attributes. To do so is to aid and abet a disgusting traffic in endangered species.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Oct. 27 2015 2:33:42
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3437
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Needs some advise (Brazilian Ros... (in reply to estebanana)
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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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Date Oct. 28 2015 3:09:20
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