How to certify Brazilian rosewood.

[Eldon Howe]

How to certify Brazilian rosewood.

I have the opportunity to acquired a few Brazilian rosewood kits for various martin models.
The wood came from the martin factory. It was wood they choose not to use. Kits came from the 1960's and contain the packaging list and the Martin 1833 shop catolog in the boxes.
How would I get this wood certified?

[David King]

Martin might be willing to help you out here but I have no idea who you would need to talk to. If the seller isn't willing to undertake the task of getting the paperwork taken care of before the sale I think i would pass. No paperwork is needed provided the wood never leaves the country or until more stringent interstate rules come into effect it some point in the future.

[Karl Hoyt]

I have a number of sets of BRW when I bought out the remaining wood from a deceased luthier. So I looked into this. US dept of Fish and Wildlife control all the permitting for Brazilian. They have certification applications for people with BRW guitars that travel from country to country, as well as for builders who want to permit pre-convention (June 1992 I believe) lumber/guitar sets........ I'm in the process of putting that application together. And still another permit for importing/exporting BRW.......75 bucks and about a 10 page application

The info you want is:

https://www.fws.gov/permits/

But I would say , if you only have a couple of sets and are building them up for personal use... Just do it. And give the new owners copies of the paperwork you have. That 'should ' suffice to demonstrate that this was pre-convention BRW, which is what the CITES treaty is all about . Limiting access to any new stock of BRW

[Eldon Howe]

Thanks, I'll review the gov. link. I've heard it could cost up to 20K?

[Karl Hoyt]

I haven't heard that. That may apply to high volume importers/exporters.... The whole process is as clear as mud, and at least for now, as David says, if you have no intention of exporting it and it's staying in the states, just use it.

There are a couple other people on MIMF with actual experience with certifying/permitting for use .... Their names escape me. I did a search for BRW on the MIMF forum and some names came up. The whole process is as clear as mud:

Good Luck: Karl

[Alan Carruth]

My understanding is that if you're going to sell BRW you do need to be able to demonstrate that it entered the country legally to the best of your knowledge ('due diligence'). If you can show that it came in before June '92, then it is presumably 'legal' unless somebody can show that it was stolen or some such. If it came in after that you'l need to show that it was logged before June of '92, or otherwise was a permitted harvest, so you'll need more paperwork. Export-worthy paperwork is, I'm told, harder to get. I need to go through the whole thing myself at some point, and it's possible that my understanding is flawed. This is not uncommon....

[Eldon Howe]

thanks everyone.