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What are the latest Cites regulations on international sales?


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Hey guys an HFC member has asked me about selling  and shipping a guitar to France from the US.  I'm nervous about it for a couple reasons.  I know in 2017 Cites started to regulate all rosewood crossing international borders.  Have they loosened this a bit since then or do you still need to get a passport to do this?

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The regs haven't changed, you will still need to get an export permit to ship rosewood. I doubt that it's too much trouble to get, but it'll take a little fee money and some patience. Here's a Reverb article on the process. This article focuses on the master certificate program, but it's basically the same form to apply for a single certificate.

https://reverb.com/news/the-relatively-painless-way-to-deal-with-cites

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Can anyone explain how customs agents know the difference between rosewood and "brown wood" of another variety? Are people just considrered guilty until they can prove they're innocent? Do feds expect people to prove what kind of wood is on their fretboard, and if so, how? It's not like customs agents are chipping off part of your fretboard to perform some kind of lab analysis, but they expect musicians to ruin their own guitars to do just that to satisfy bureaucrats? 

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Frankly, since all this CITES crap began, my desire to sell the guitars I desire to sell has dropped to zero. :( 

You guys in the US at least have Reverb, which seems to explain pretty clearly what the procedure is. Here in Canada everything CITES-related remains quite obscure to me. :( 

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19 hours ago, texwest said:

Thanks curry powder, after reading that, it sounds like more trouble than its worth.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. A non-US buyer would need to be patient, but beyond that it's only a little paperwork.

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4 minutes ago, currypowder said:

I wouldn't necessarily say that. A non-US buyer would need to be patient, but beyond that it's only a little paperwork.

This.  There is a need for patience on both sides.  The U.S. office is small and overworked.  It took 10 months for the US permit to go through in my case but do not know if this is the norm.  The Canadian side took 20 days for the permit to come.  The US seller and I made our deal in May 2017.  The Fedex truck comes today.    

BCR koa.jpg

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6 minutes ago, dgstandard said:

This.  There is a need for patience on both sides.  The U.S. office is small and overworked.  It took 10 months for the US permit to go through in my case but do not know if this is the norm.  The Canadian side took 20 days for the permit to come.  The US seller and I made our deal in May 2017.  The Fedex truck comes today.    

BCR koa.jpg

Now you can send my chunk of Korina back to me. 

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Can someone here please point me to the process for getting a CITES export certificate in Canada? Seriously, I haven’t put FS at least four axes because of CITES. :( 

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Lise Jubinville
[email protected] /Tel 1 855 869 8670

Head, CITES Permit Policy and Operations Unit / CITES Canada - Management Authority

Wildlife Management and Regulatory Affairs / Canadian Wildlife Service

Environment et Changements climatiques Canada / Government of Canada

Service standards:  http://www.ec.gc.ca/cites/default.asp?lang=En&n=B02A39A6-1

I found sending an email was the most efficient way to get an answer:  [email protected]

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probably a dumbass question.....please forgive me

regarding DGstandards purchase example above: Why did the transaction require both US and Canadian permits? Like Zorrow, I have pretty much been on hold with selling due to Cites protocol. If I want to ship from Canada to the US, would I not just need the one Canadian permit confirming the species and source of the wood and that would be acceptable to US customs?

 

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I don't see why they didn't exempt fretboard size wood. The ENTIRE issue with rosewood comes from the huge quantities going to make furniture for china. Guitars use a tiny fraction of the overall legal trade of rosewood. Ugh such a mess.

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1 minute ago, tbonesullivan said:

I don't see why they didn't exempt fretboard size wood. The ENTIRE issue with rosewood comes from the huge quantities going to make furniture for china. Guitars use a tiny fraction of the overall legal trade of rosewood. Ugh such a mess.

I believe I read somewhere that some musical instrument relief will be considered in 2019. If I can find the article, I'll post it.

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9 hours ago, FGJ said:

Can anyone explain how customs agents know the difference between rosewood and "brown wood" of another variety? Are people just considrered guilty until they can prove they're innocent? Do feds expect people to prove what kind of wood is on their fretboard, and if so, how? It's not like customs agents are chipping off part of your fretboard to perform some kind of lab analysis, but they expect musicians to ruin their own guitars to do just that to satisfy bureaucrats? 

They don't. And yes.

On 4/22/2018 at 3:01 PM, texwest said:

Thanks curry powder, after reading that, it sounds like more trouble than its worth.

Yeah.

5 hours ago, dgstandard said:

This.  There is a need for patience on both sides.  The U.S. office is small and overworked.  It took 10 months for the US permit to go through in my case but do not know if this is the norm.  The Canadian side took 20 days for the permit to come.  The US seller and I made our deal in May 2017.  The Fedex truck comes today.    

BCR koa.jpg

It's because our agents are on coffee break 8 hours a day.

3 hours ago, zorrow said:

Can someone here please point me to the process for getting a CITES export certificate in Canada? Seriously, I haven’t put FS at least four axes because of CITES. :( 

I actually have a line on someone who may be able to help us. And, no, it's not my usual slim shady way of doing business. Totally above board with an international company. I've been meaning to give my contact a call so I may as well do it now. 

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9 hours ago, dgstandard said:

This.  There is a need for patience on both sides.  The U.S. office is small and overworked.  It took 10 months for the US permit to go through in my case but do not know if this is the norm.  The Canadian side took 20 days for the permit to come.  The US seller and I made our deal in May 2017.  The Fedex truck comes today.    

 

10 months for a US cites permit.  UGH  I think I'll just sell within the US!  I'm glad this thread might help out the Canadians!

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Funny; it seems to me if you just let prices of mass quantities of rosewood go up to China, the demand for mass quantities of rosewood to China would go down.  And if they didn't, you could just raise the prices again, and again, until they did.

Without all the regulations.

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Wait. I'm confused. Did I read the above correctly?

If I were to sell a guitar to someone across the US/Canada border, I would need a CITES permit from the Canadian government and a CITES permit from the USA government?

I thought the "export" was cleared through one's own government, via the CITES permit. Is there a specific article that points to needing a permit from each agency?

 

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9 hours ago, Toadroller said:

Funny; it seems to me if you just let prices of mass quantities of rosewood go up to China, the demand for mass quantities of rosewood to China would go down.  And if they didn't, you could just raise the prices again, and again, until they did.

Without all the regulations.

Allowing the natural market forces of supply and demand to set prices high enough to dissuade Chine from buying rosewood would require China's demand to exceed the available supply. If the supply exceeds China's demand, the prices won't go up until those conditions reverse and the resource in question becomes scarce, but I think the point of protecting certain trees is to prevent them from becoming that scarce in the first place. 

While I'm no tree-hugger and I think bureaucrats create many stupid and inefficient environmental regulations, I also believe in managing resources responsibly so they don't disappear and so we can continue to cultivate and use them at a sustainable rate. Trees are a crop. You can cut them down, but like all crops, if you want to have them, you need to plant and care for them as well. 

All of that said, I agree that guitars hardly present a threat to the rosewood supply. 

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If the supply is fine at the moment, wouldn't some speculators remark on the unusual demand from China and foresee a shortage?  They could invest their own capital and start to acquire a reserve, sustainable supply, for when demand exceeds supply and the prices rise.  And of course when the prices rise, the fashionable tastes in rosewood will change, bringing another variable into the equilibrium.

Bob Taylor has done that with ebony in Cameroon, a long term vision improving the quality of life for his employees there and finding alternative uses for what were considered useless ebony sources (those not perfectly black).  Fashionably marketed to eco-conscious guitarists who don't mind colors in their ebony fretboards.  Bob's learned a lot along the way, paying some prices for sure, dealing with poachers and local governments, etc.  Not easy by any means.  And possibly not a profitable venture for him.  A laudable risk that may pay off financially, though that does not appear to be his goal, which appears to be responsible resource management.

Instead, with rosewood, we've set regulations in place that cause unnecessary distortions in the marketplace (now I can't sell a simple production guitar, clearly not built with mal-intent-materials, across international boundaries without paying the tax man, a new, self-invited  heavyweight player in the market, on both ends) and form precedents for further species restrictions in the future.  More disruptions.

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Alternative woods are starting to get used for fretboards, at least by Fender...on top of using Pau Ferro for fretboards on more of their guitars (something they've used on the US-made SRV Strat already for years), they've started using Indian Laurel on their Squier J5/John 5 Tele.  Big whoop you might say, just another cheap rubbish wood...but maybe not.  It looks very promising, especially since it kinda already looks like rosewood, is practically as hard (and presumably as hard wearing) as rosewood, and it isn't on anybody's 'prohibited'/'restricted' list that I know of...plus, it's related to limba AKA Korina:

http://www.wood-database.com/indian-laurel/

http://www.wood-database.com/east-indian-rosewood/

The only problem I see with 'alternative' woods, is:  can the Customs people tell the difference, or are you gonna need documentation for that too, just because it kinda looks like rosewood?

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