Bone or Ivory?

[cjd-player]

... there is a big difference between an agency going after a corporation with a stock pile of the banned material, and Joe Shmock traveling with his guitar. Without claiming that traveling with a braz roz guitar is 100% risk free, I do believe things are being blown out of proportion, and wouldn't (and won't) worry about a braz rosewood fingerboard or bridge on my guitar when I travel abroad.

T'aint necessarily so. Violin players in symphony orchestras can no longer travel with bows made of pernambuco wood from Brazil. It's the traditional violin bow wood but is now endangered just like Brazilian Rosewood. Pernambuco violin bows have been confiscated from musicians traveling internationally with symphonies. So the customs agents WILL go after an individual.

Are things blown out of proportion? Absolutely.
But the reality is they will go after an individual with a single instrument.
So if you get some "Rambo" customs agent, or the agent who just had the refresher training on endangered materials, he may confiscate your guitar to check out the wood or other material; just because he can.

The safest route is to get a cheap laminate guitar, or a carbon fiber guitar (not cheap) for international travel. Leave the fancy stuff at home.

 

[killdeer43]

The safest route is to get a cheap laminate guitar, or a carbon fiber guitar (not cheap) for international travel. Leave the fancy stuff at home.

Sounds like the thread about the perfect camping guitar could blend in with this one in that regard. :wink:

Joe

 

[taabru45]

Even if you laminate the ivory off old piano keys...they are subject to the same rules...that is if you re-work old stuff that was legal at the time...it is now illegal...go figure...Steffan

 

[cjd-player]

The safest route is to get a cheap laminate guitar, or a carbon fiber guitar (not cheap) for international travel. Leave the fancy stuff at home.

Sounds like the thread about the perfect camping guitar could blend in with this one in that regard. :wink:

Joe

Yea, it kinda is like camping. :lol:

Got to protect the good stuff from the elements and the BEARS :shock:

:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[Yoko Oh No]

These is my personal opinion regarding ME only, that I developed when I was looking for a nice acoustic:

If I'm overly concerned with rosewood, mahogany, cedar, maple, ebony, spruce, graphite, or hollywood....or trying to find the sutle nuances from bone, ivory, tusq, petrified dog poop, plastic, corian, granite, or ceramic...then I've got to conclude that the music I'm playing isn't interesting enough.

I think some of you remember my post about my son putting an accidental 3" crack in the rosewood side of my guitar. Well I've come to love that little ding, and, believe it or not, the guitar actually sounds a bit brighter since the incident.

I would put in or buy whatever material makes you happy. And then for $20 bucks my son will put a ding in the instrument for you (does not include shipping).

 

[cjd-player]

... for $20 bucks my son will put a ding in the instrument for you (does not include shipping).

Does his ding come with a warranty?? :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Well said, Yoko.

 

[Don]

You characters slay me!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[taabru45]

You characters slay me!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

We really are a special group here...normally its $35...another LTG perk... Steffan

 

[fronobulax]

petrified dog poop...
And then for $20 bucks my son will put a ding in the instrument for you (does not include shipping).

And for $30 he'll deliver a flaming paper bag of your new nut material to your front porch?

 

[RussD]

I agree that much of the decision asround nut and saddle material is personal opinion. The last several I've made (and I think everyone should try making their own) is camel bone. Very hard and gorgeous: http://shop.arizonaironwood.com/Camel-Bone-Scales_c116.htm

If you decide to make your own, PM me and I'll see if I can't cut a chunk off of the stuff I already have for you.

 

[taabru45]

So what do they do with the violin bows, rosewood instruments, ivory carvings, etc? Are they on display on the 'agents' homes to protect the rest of us, or what??? Steffan

 

[cjd-player]

I have heard that things that are confiscated and deemed illegal are destroyed, but I do not know that for fact.

If true, seems such a waste.

 

[taabru45]

That's like killing all the endangered wild animals and birds....nuts, totally nuts...Steffan

 

[adorshki]

That's like killing all the endangered wild animals and birds....nuts, totally nuts...Steffan

Hi Steffan, don't forget the intent is to remove the profit incentive to traffic in the endangered species by making it ever so much more difficult to simply move it around. The unfortunate side effect is that stuff that once had no restrictions on international movement, and small pieces which would be deemed "art specimens" are now subject to the same standards as raw materials. It's the attempt to cross borders that's being monitored.
The more I think I think about it, the more sense that makes. If there has to be any regulation at all, it should be at the point at which smugglers move the material from the source country to the market or trans-shipment country. For one thing, even if a source country isn't a treaty signatory and allows expolitation of its resources, it'll still be hard to get the stuff into the "profitable market" destination country.
At least we're not being told we can't keep the stuff we already have. We just can't move it as freely and/or without a lot of prior paperwork.
I can live with that as the lesser of two evils. :wink:

 

[adorshki]

I have heard that things that are confiscated and deemed illegal are destroyed, but I do not know that for fact.
If true, seems such a waste.

It's probably true and probably depends on where it was seized. For one thing there would storage costs, and it probably couldn't be legally auctioned off like other seized property since that would kind of tend to destroy the credibility of the government conducting the auction.
Heck, auctioning it might even be disallowed in the treaty itself. It would in effect be doing exactly what the treaty's intended to prevent.