Official Luthiers Forum!

As of 3/1/2011, APHIS has issued new rules for export. They will no longer issue re-export certification unless you can provide copies of the import permits for each of the materials in your product from the vendor from whom you purchased it. They can issue an export permit, but unless the country to which you are shipping is willing to accept this, then you may have problems shipping to that country.

So I implore all the wood suppliers who advertise here (or lurk here), to start supplying the following information with their sales:

genus and species of the material/product sold
Country of origin of the material
Year it was harvested
Import permit for the material
All on formal letterhead.

David D. Berkowitz
Berkowitz Guitars

Wow . sounds like the beginning of the end ... the noose is tightening

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

This is timely for me as I have a guitar to ship to Switzerland in a few weeks. Sounds like I have lots to figure out.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Must be a consperisey by those carbon fibre guitar guys.

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Where did you get that ruling?

Is this for CITES species or all species of wood?

_________________
Lance Peck

From the APHIS State Plant & Health Director for the Maryland & DC area. They are making a distinction between a re-export permit and an export permit. If you have the documentation I mentioned above, they'll issue a re-export permit; if not, the latter which is less specific. They said they were getting pressure from the International community because of the lack of specificity to their enforcement. So they made the change. This is separate and apart from any need for CITES documentation for Appendix I materials. They're pretty hard about this too, as demonstrated in their musical instrument document issued about two weeks ago. If you've got brazilian and you don't have CITES paper work for it, or have no way to apply for certification via receipts predating the 1992 listing, they consider it contraband.

What are the rules for personally owned guitars with shell inlays? I will have one going to Taiwan with the owner in a few months.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

This is much as I know:
http://www.fws.gov/international/DMA_DSA/CITES/pdf/musical_instruments.pdf

I believe this only applies to CITES species?

If you have the CITES documents properly filled out when you import/export the material the inspector can simply pass the item through customs. But if you are missing one form or something is not correctly filled out the procedure is to place the shipment on hold and move toward violations.
If the inspector decides the material is not what is listed on the paperwork then they place the hold.

But how to prove to the inspectors the species in a guitar are not CITES?
Having a document that says the wood was legally imported won't help because how are you going to prove the wood in the guitar is actually made from the wood on the import permit? It is not like a billet of rosewood has a serial number that stays with the wood once it is dispersed and transformed.

Shells are the same problem or worse. Such a tiny piece how is an inspector to know what species it is?

About the only solution is to use species that won't be mistaken for protected species.

_________________
Lance Peck

Lance, this is what I got this afternoon from the horses mouth. He wanted everything, not just CITES.

Can you PM me his name and contact number. I would like to talk to him.

I wonder if "everything" includes everything like spruce and maple?

_________________
Lance Peck

So does anyone know if a Honduran Mahogany neck is a problem?

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Here's a good question. What do we need to do about Brazilian Rosewood sets that we KNOW will alway remain in the US? I have a number of primo Brazilian Rosewood sets that I would like to hang onto for a couple decades. Do you think the situation will be such in the future that we have to have documentation for the wood we already have and that we are not planning on exporting?

--
Simon

David, Thank you for that link.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Simon, I can't say this for sure, but my understanding is that if you do not have CITES paperwork for them, nor have receipts for the wood proving it was sold prior to the 1992 CITES listing (so you can apply for the documentation), then it is considered contraband. You need to read up on the Lacey amendments. We've been signatories to CITES, but seems only now is it being enforced. Here's the rub: Lacey doesn't care. Lacey says you can't use it, have, transport, roll in a doobie or whatever. I know of a company with 1000 sets of brazilian that even has IBAMA (Brazil's Fish and Wildlife) paperwork and Fish and Wildlife did an inspection, saw the stuff and told them they couldn't use it because it didn't have the CITES paperwork.

Lance, you need to call the guy covering your district. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/plant_exports/ecs/ca.shtml

Edited out - David already answered my question.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Hondo .. at a minimum, you have to follow the CITES regs on that ...

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Simon, the other part of Lacey is that it makes everyone in the supply chain responsible from harvester to importer to shipper to manufacturer to customer. And it assumes no innocence in that ignorance is not a defense. Furthermore, it makes everyone liable in the case of seizure. You, as a builder, cannot guarantee that the guitar is ONLY going to stay in the States, and the law specifically says it doesn't care whether you used it or it passed through your hands, you are liable. So lets say a customer's guitar gets confiscated because instead of carrying it across a boarder, they ship it. You can be held liable by the customer, and by FWS/APHIS, in the former for selling material in a product that you did not have the documentation for, and in the latter for the same reason and anything else they can throw at you.

Thanks, but I would still like to speak to the guy you spoke to. We need to know if there is a standard fereral enforcement policy or if district supervisors are acting independently.

_________________
Lance Peck