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I am trying to find out the laws on exporting an instrument from USA to Australia that is inlaid with Mother of Pearl.
My internet search has found contradictory info.

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm sorry I cannot help you but I find it ironic that I can buy mother of pearl from Australia, as I almost always do, and then I cannot inlay it in a guitar and sell it back?

So you are saying it is not legal to export it to Australia and other countries?

No again, to be clear I don't know. I am just saying I buy all my pearl and abalone from a company in Australia and they ship it here no problem. I guess I never actually questioned the legality of it but they seem to be a reputable company. So I would just find it odd that I cannot ship it back there in the form of a guitar.

https://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/f ... uments.pdf

You will need to contact Fish and Wildlife Service. The above article is five years old and guaranteed to be no longer accurate. And get it in writing, i.e. a copy of the current regs. and administrative interpretations.

I have reviewed this document and it is as clear as mud!

There seems to be no more current info.

so from what i gather you need a fish and wildlife license and have to pay some fees....which seems like more hassle than it's worth.

There must be a reason that people don't do it because the all the big supply houses (Stew Mac,Lmi,etc.)will not ship it out of the US

between CITIES and LACEY act they made it very difficult
if you are traveling with the guitar you can attain a 1 time travel certificate at CITIES
Lacey you do need to contact them in most cases MOP and PAUA can be cause to have the guitar destroyed or confiscated at different borders
it is confusing

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

If they can make it too difficult or too costly then they have accomplished their goals - restricting the use of those materials to those who are willing to pay the price. You can still shoot an elephant and bring in the trophy head if you are rich enough.

OK, I talked to Chuck Eriksen a.k.a. the duke of Pearl and he sent me a laundry list of what you have to do it’s mine boggling to me at least how many things have to be done.

I guess they just want to make it so hard that people don’t want to do it.


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Does anyone else here by from the Australian Mother of Pearl CO. ?

I buy shell from MOP Supplies in Australia. Have for many years. I also sell it to builders. Maybe 10 years ago F & W in Honolulu stopped a shipment. I was given a choice of buying an import license or pay a fine. They were nice enough about it. So, I pay a yearly import license fee of $100.00 /yr. and a $94.00 fee for each shipment I import, no matter if it is 1 piece of shell or 1,000 pieces. All this said, I am the only 1 I know who ever had a shipment stopped by F & W. Technically it does require a permit to import any wildlife product. However, it happens every day on eBay and I've never heard of any issues.

The fees are not a problem, since the shell pricing is good. However, the government red tape is maddening. Before everything changed to online forms, things were easy. I only do the imports once or twice a year, and the online forms change all the time. It normally takes me several hours of computer time, numerous rejections, and several phone calls to F & W offices around the country to get a clearance for a shipment. It gets worse everytime I do it!

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

Ok so all that must be transparent to the low level buyer like myself. It does seem crazy though.

In my dealings with F & W I've met all kinds of agents. Mostly nice enough, but enforcement seems to me to be discretionary. Basically the take home message is that you just gotta do whatever they want you to do. Logic often does not apply!

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

So how do companies like Martin, Taylor, Gibson, etc. do it then? They make guitars in the US and ship it all over the world. As far as I know their guitars are all full of pearl and shells.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I don't know for certain but they probably do the paperwork. Often you hear people say a Martin costs more in their country than it does in the U.S.. With more expensive abalone inlaid models it might include the license and documentation costs.