Does anybody now if 64' fret boards on D40 were Braz?

adorshki

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Just to help build Neal's case for it being Braz:
The impression I get from readings is that there was no compelling reason for any of the "big makers" to use anything else in '64.
From this Guitar Player article:
"Throughout the first half of the last century this hardwood (botanical name Dalbergia nigra), while still considered exotic and desirable, was relatively plentiful due to rampant harvesting of the Brazilian coastal forests. Supplies grew extremely thin in the late 1960s, however, and Martin and others stopped using Brazilian rosewood in 1969, moving over to Indian rosewood, then other varieties."
AND:
"If period-correct specs are of absolute importance in a new build based on a pre-1969 guitar design, and you’re willing to pay the price to go all out, the right Brazilian rosewood can still yield stunning results."
So scarcity of the wood itself wasn't an issue until later in the '60's.
Guild apparently still had stockpiles of it such that we've seen D50's with genuine Brazilian backs and sides into the '70's, and also mixed EIR /Braz when the blanks suitable for backs were exhausted, and they had blocks suitable for fretboards well into the '70's, as Neal has.
In fact I'm having a fuzzy recollection that they even had Brazilian bridges into the '80's? (Hans showed some pics of OEM replacement bridges he had once, just can't recall for sure if they were '80's.)
Also, I can't recall Hans ever mentioning use of EIR prior to the general industry shift, although of course anything's possible and perhaps simply wasn't deemed worthy of documentation by Guild at the time.
One thing I just came across that was new to me:
"East Indian Rosewood has about twice as many pores per square inch as Brazilian Rosewood."
All the prior discussions I've seen here focus on how hard it actually is to tell the difference without DNA testing, or the "smell test", but that just might help you judge for yourself, with a magnifying glass and a known sample of Braz or EIR to compare your fretboard to.
From here:
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-a...osewood-from-east-indian-and-other-rosewoods/
Oh, just noticed, there's even a fluorescence test in there but it requires shavings.
I'm not a gambling man but I'd bet $10.00 it's gonna be Braz, only because that's about all I can afford.
Otherwise I'd go $100.00.
:friendly_wink:
 
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kostask

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Brazilian Rosewood is not in short supply. The entire interior of Brazil has millions of Brazilian rosewood trees. What has happened is that the costs for that rosewood have gone up, starting in 1968 or so. This comes from the greed of the Brazilian government, and later on, the UN getting involved. There is more Brazilian rosewood cut to clear land for farming use than there ever was for furniture or guitar wood. The trees that are cut are burned. The clear cutting of the Brazilian rain forest by Brazilian citizens does not require any permits. or hava any restictions. The vast majority of Brazilian rosewood has been cut for this purpose, even though popular belief is that it is due to its use in furniture and musical instruments. Ask yourself the following question: Why is there so much Brazilian rosewood stump wood out there? What happened to the rest of the tree?

One fully grown Brazilian rosewood tree has enough wood to make hundreds, even thousands of guitar back and side wood sets. However, in order to get the wood out of the country, you need permits from the Brazilian government. This is very expensive, and where the Brazilian government gets revenue from.

As for testing, it is not easy to tell on site, especially under finish. The smell test is probably the most reliable. Another way is to look at the wood colour, assuming there is no finish in the way, like your fretboard. If the wood colour shade tends towards a dark red or purple, it is probably Brazilian. If it is a pure brown/tan colour, it is most likely East Indian Rosewood.
 
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Westerly Wood

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Brazilian Rosewood is not in short supply. The entire interior of Brazil has millions of Brazilian rosewood trees. What has happened is that the costs for that rosewood have gone up, starting in 1968 or so. This comes from the greed of the Brazilian government, and later on, the UN getting involved. There is more Brazilian rosewood cut to clear land for farming use than there ever was for furniture or guitar wood. The trees that are cut are burned. The clear cutting of the Brazilian rain forest by Brazilian citizens does not require any permits. or hava any restictions. The vast majority of Brazilian rosewood has been cut for this purpose, even though popular belief is that it is due to its use in furniture and musical instruments. Ask yourself the following question: Why is there so much Brazilian rosewood stump wood out there? What happened to the rest of the tree?

One fully grown Brazilian rosewood tree has enough wood to make hundreds, even thousands of guitar back and side wood sets. However, in order to get the wood out of the country, you need permits from the Brazilian government. This is very expensive, and where the Brazilian government gets revenue from.

wow, i never knew but sort of suspected it was all a scam. such a bummer. imagine if Braz was as prevalent as hog or indian rosewood.
 

kostask

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Tropical Mahogany (Cuban, Honduras, etc.) is also on the CITES list. So is ebony. Ebony is rightfully on that list, as it never was plentiful to start with, and as such, using it for musical instruments (not just fret boards and bridges, but for other instruments as well) has depleted a lot of the existing supply. That is why a lot of ebony now has what would have been described as "defects" in the past. Things like grey/whitish streaks, variations in color and grain lines, etc. There is no longer the luxury of using only "perfect" ebony. I had a Lys guitar from the late 1970s/early 1980s that had an ebony fretboard and bridge that looked like it they were made of plastic because they were so perfectly black and had such a perfect grain uniformity. I will probably never see that in a new guitar again, at least nothing that I can afford. I would guess that no guitar with less than a 5 figure price tag will have ebony that is as perfect.

Ebony is right to be on that list. Koa should be as well. Brazilian Rosewood should not, as it an artificially creates scarcity, and the same goes for the tropical Mahoganies.
 

adorshki

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Brazilian Rosewood is not in short supply. The entire interior of Brazil has millions of Brazilian rosewood trees. What has happened is that the costs for that rosewood have gone up, starting in 1968 or so. This comes from the greed of the Brazilian government, and later on, the UN getting involved.
When Brazil stopped allowing unlimited export of the wood in the mid '60's that created a shortage compared to demand at the time, which drove price up.
There is more Brazilian rosewood cut to clear land for farming use than there ever was for furniture or guitar wood.
That's correct, but the end result is that habitat is vastly diminished and in fact the species is endangered, from Wikipedia:
"Dalbergia nigra is listed as vulnerable on the international IUCN Red List.[4] The trees' regeneration rates among existing populations are poor, possibly because the seeds of the few remaining fruiting trees are heavily predated by rodents.[2] In addition it is threatened by habitat loss, since most of the plant's forest habitats have been converted to farmland. Due to its endangered status, it was CITES-listed on Nov. 6, 1992, in Appendix I (the most protected), and trade in it is restricted.[5]."
I suspect the CITES listing is the UN involvement you referred to and listing occurs at the request of the CITES member country. However, CITES is not administered by the UN.
However, in order to get the wood out of the country, you need permits from the Brazilian government. This is very expensive, and where the Brazilian government gets revenue from.

According to that Guitar Player article I linked to, the only wood allowed out of the county now is deadfall or pre-CITES harvest:

"In 1992, Brazilian rosewood was added to the CITES treaty, strictly banning its exportation. Today, Brazilian rosewood can only be obtained and used for guitars (or anything, really) if it was harvested and exported prior to the CITES ban, or harvested from trees that have fallen naturally—and is accompanied with a certificate of provenance in both cases...And although many players infer a “warm, mellow” tone from the wood’s vintage credentials, the reality is quite different. Brazilian rosewood is fairly hard and dense, and even brittle at times (verging on fragile when current supplies have been harvested from smaller twisted trees, stumps, or tap roots)."

All that jives with what I've read in the last 5 years.
IE there ain't a whole lotta wood available for the Brazilian government to milk for profit, anyway.
 
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adorshki

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Tropical Mahogany (Cuban, Honduras, etc.) is also on the CITES list.
It needs to be understood that there are different levels of trade control ("Appendixes") in the CITES listings, it is not a one-size fits all restriction on trade in species.
Brazilian happens to fall under the most restrictive appendix, "Appendix 1" (from the usual source, Wikipedia):
"Appendix I[edit]
Appendix I, about 1200 species, are species that are threatened with extinction and are or may be affected by trade. Commercial trade in wild-caught specimens of these species is illegal (permitted only in exceptional licensed circumstances) ."
Participation in CITES is also voluntary, it not something imposed by the UN.
It just so happens that all members of the UN are CITES treaty parties.
From "the usual source":
"CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals. It was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)."
 
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Br1ck

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I used to run into a wood dealer at Gryphon in Palo Alto every once in a while. He said that when cutting rosewood, loggers would leave 6 to 8 feet of stump. This is what he harvested and imported to the US. Over time, the bribes he had to pay to get his paperwork in order from the Brazillian government, and the bribes extorted at checkpoints along the roads just made it a pain to make a profit so he quit. This was way before the CITES regulation. He also said there was a bunch of Brazilian stockpiled by every manufacturer and it was, like diamonds, trickled out to keep profits high.
 
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