Official Luthiers Forum!

Since the Summer of 2011 I’ve been working closely with the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) as a member of their 18-person Lacey Task Force team in Washington, DC, urging Congress and the Senate to pass legislation remedying the Lacey Act’s unintended consequences which are crippling many businesses in the music industry (and others). I was also invited to join a second and much smaller (5 or 6 person) NAMM team involved in meeting with federal agency officials in seeking non-legislative solutions. This smaller team has had DC meetings in December and February, with the next scheduled for early April, the beginnings of a series of discussions which could last from one to three years. So far, we’ve been talking to officials from various branches of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), specifically their Division of Management Authority and Office of Law Enforcement. Our next session will add people from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP). It may be easier to achieve institutional/agency fixes than legislative, but both approaches are absolutely necessary to get permanent relief.

This last trip involved trying to get USFWS to back off on the $93.00 Inspection Fee and mandatory requirement of using expensive ($140.00) brokerage services for import/export shipments containing even the tiniest amount (such as one abalone dot) of wildlife material — this is the single most devastating factor in killing many small international transactions, which for many businesses are about 30% of total sales. It’s also the biggest sticking point in moving any instrument across U.S. borders which contains so little as a single piece of shell, thus incurring the special declaration requirement and expenses. And this is exactly why PRS Guitars, formerly the largest user of shell in the industry, in May of last year decided to switch to only plastics and Corian® in all their production guitars – and others seem to be headed that way also. USFWS is totally unwilling to accommodate exemptions for single instruments, or for small shipment values under our suggested $300.00 limit; in their experience, doing so would generate a vast number of shipments all falsely undervalued in order to qualify for the exemption, something they don’t have the time or manpower to sort out.

As for any wood stocks currently possessed by luthiers, especially any unpapered Brazilian rosewood or other listed species, USFWS is anxious to work with small builders to get their woods exempted so they can be shipped internationally as raw material, parts, or in an instrument. All that’s needed is for a builder to submit clearly detailed photos of currently held pieces, along with common and Latin name, country of origin, the exact amount of wood involved (in metric weight or volume), and an exact estimate of how many tops/backs/sides/fingerboards/bridges, etc. the wood is expected to yield (or number of existing pieces or sets). Include any and all paperwork associated with the wood, as well as a written and notarized statement detailing all you can remember about the wood or product’s history and provenance (when/where/whom it was purchased/inherited from, any prior owners, anyone who witnessed the sale, etc.). Also collect notarized statements, pictures, calendar entries, and any other supportive material from anyone involved in or witnessing any of the wood’s past history, and submit this information using a USFWS exemption application Form 3-200-32. Cost will run between $50-200, depending on whether applying for a single item/instrument or for setting up a “master file” on multiple things.

Nevada luthier Don Musser recently became the first to try this for unpapered tonewood (in a guitar headed for Canada), based on statements from both he and myself (I witnessed a transaction for his Brazilian in 1981), and he got an exemption certificate on the first try! He now plans to apply for a master file on his remaining wood. USFWS officials assure us that they’ll do everything possible for luthiers who submit a credible/believable account, for reasonable amounts of inventory which would be expected of a smaller shop (container loads would be more problematic!).

If an application is rejected, USFWS will indicate the reasons so that it can be corrected and resubmitted. If still rejected, our team has personal contact numbers for high ranking officials who are willing to intervene as far as the law allows, and who can pass their decisions on down to the subordinate agents in local offices processing the paperwork. Applying and being rejected will in no way cause USFWS to consider the wood in question to be “illegal”, or cause the luthier to be targeted for enforcement action or raids. The only way any given wood can be labeled as illegal is for the government to produce a paper trail (or witnesses) proving such is the case — an extremely unlikely situation with undocumented wood!

This encouraging information needs to be broadcast to luthiers as widely as possible, so please pass along this update to your own circle of music industry friends.

Legislatively, nothing at all will happen unless a huge number of luthiers, dealers, collectors, repair people, musicians, roadies, and groupies are willing to spend a few minutes contacting their district congressional reps and state senators politely but firmly requesting that they support reasonable amendments which will fix the Lacey Act’s unintended consequences. The only vehicle available is through NAMM’s efforts at getting congressional co-sponsors of the Cooper-Blackburn HR 3210 Lacey RELIEF Act bill (see links and sample/template letters on NAMM’s website, at: http://www.namm.org/public-affairs/arti ... -hr-3210-r). It currently has only 18 sponsors, but at least 100 or so are needed for it to be taken seriously and not just die in committee. If not enough support is gained fairly soon, we’ll have to start from scratch again after the coming elections change the names we’ve been dealing with in DC.

The current issue of ASIA’s Guitarmaker (Winter 2011) includes a second publication containing extensive and very specific information about how to comply with CITES and Lacey and stay out of trouble. The GAL website also has a link to a long and detailed article which I authored, at: http://www.luth.org/cites.htm. Anyone wanting the real facts behind Gibson’s situation can contact me with their email address, and will reply with a load of attachments of thoroughly documented and sourced information — almost nothing in the media, from Gibson’s PR campaign, or from political sources is true or accurate.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE that none of the above Lacey information has anything at all to do with partisan (party) politics or any past or current administration policies -- the 2008 Lacey amendment was initiated with bi-partisan support, as are the current proposed legislative fixes. These are regulatory and enforcement issues that are adversely affecting us all, and not political problems. To make it into a political issue will only make it more difficult to get anything accomplished in Washington. It also has absolutely nothing to do directly with Gibson's situation: NAMM was already working closely with vintage instrument dealer George Gruhn and his Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper in 2008, long before the first Gibson raid in 2009, to deal with Lacey's often overly-broad, undefined, and ambiguous wording which it was clear even then would cause widespread problems in the music industry. Lacey was never properly reviewed and discussed, having been eclipsed by the much larger Farm Bill to which it was paper-clipped -- in fact, almost none of those who voted to pass the very important and hotly debated Farm Bill had even read the Lacey rider!

Thanks for the update!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I think I speak for many , We appreciate your efforts , you have done us all a great service

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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

Thanks for your work and instrument makers representation in Washington !

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Thank you, keep up the battle.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Great info and as always thanks very much for your efforts!

Thanks for the detailed and well-written information. BTW, does anyone know where Gibson is currently in resolving their problems in this regard?

Thanks,
Glen

Thanks for the update, we all appreciate your efforts.

Is good news that our American colleagues will be able to get their wood stashes documented and not confiscated. However, the attitude of F&W on the shell import/export issue is disappointing. What it effectively means is screw small business and individuals in order to stop the bigger guys rorting the system. Personally I am very grateful to my (now very small number of) customers who are willing to go through the paperwork hoops and pay the fees.

Peter

Chuck,
great to see you here!
Thanks for taking the time with this update. I guess we all need to pull together if we want to see some change in this law.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

I want to emphasize that FWS has been incredibly cooperative and generous in their participation in the NAMM Import-Export Working group in which Chuck and I participate. It is disappointing about the shell. Someone remarked during the meeting two weeks ago that all of this stuff should die down some in that its a bit like filling out taxes. It takes a while to figure it out and after that its a pain, but not so bad.

As for Gibson, needless to say USFWS cannot comment on an ongoing enforcement action. During the meeting in December I tried to skirt the issue, asking if there was a mechanism, an avenue through which USFWS, and Department of State could approach the Indian government and say, you're using the wrong codes and until you change your laws, we're not letting your stuff in. Unfortunately before they could answer it, the conversation was hijacked and we never got back to it. I did not ask them to exonerate Gibson, merely to nudge the Indian government whom in a conversation with a Indian national wood dealer said that they thought it was a "Gibson" problem and they weren't intending to do anything about it. I was able to convey that piece of information to them before the conversation was upended. We didn't get a chance to discuss it at this last meeting as we were trying to get to the issues of shell and other related matters such as the Brazilian.

Does anyone know if East Indian Rosewood is a listed species. Also, does anyone know how to get a copy of the list? I read what Chuck has done and I cannot understand what it is that he says. This is way beyond me in a lot of ways.

Thanks

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http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

Indian Rosewood is not listed on CITES. Indian Rosewood, for the most part is farmed. It's used as a shade tree for tea. When it approaches the height at which it won't provide the right shade, another is planted nearby and eventually the first tree is harvested and auctioned off by the government.

Indian Rosewood and Indian Ebony came into the conversation because, in my opinion, USFWS, frustrated with Gibson's intransigence on the 2009 raid, turned up the gas by confiscating the shipment of Indian rosewood last August. USFWS was well within their right to do so as India is using the wrong trade code for exporting their fingerboards and their own regulations prohibiting the export of raw lumber over 6mm thick. I have said publicly, and in some of the news stories, wondering why USFWS couldn't have simply gone to the Indian government and said, you're using the wrong codes and we won't let your product in until you use the correct code and make the adjustments in your laws. But that didn't happen.

These regulations don't cover Indian rosewood or ebony pegheads or backs/sides because these fall under the category of veneer and are under 6mm, other than the requirement that they are harvested and transported in accordance with the Lacey Act.

I'm small potatoes, Chuck, but I appreciate all you have done and are doing to help remedy the unintended consequences of LACEY to luthiers. THANKS

Although it might be me making the most noise on here at the moment, Dave Berkowitz has been just as actively involved in these issues, and is also a member of both NAMM teams that are meeting regularly with legislators and agency officials in Washington. So...thanks, Dave!


Search CITES list for particular plants or animals, or by country: http://www.cites.org/eng/resources/species.html
Full listing of all species: http://www.cites.org/eng/resources/pub/ ... _index.pdf

I met Chuck at the Guild convention last summer and everyone should understand that the amount of work he has done has been incredible. He needed to wade through all of this for his business. What he did not have to do was all of the extra work sharing it with all of us. People like Chuck are the reason that I am proud to aspire to be a guitar maker. I am, by nature, an optimist and people like Chuck is the reason why.

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http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

+1 Stephen!!

Chuck, thank you, David B. and all the others that are at the forefront of this issue. You're all a great and valuable resource to our industry!

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Thanks very much, Chuck, for the update. I've contacted my congresswoman to urge support of the bill.

Thanks, Corky!! Also everyone else who's taken the time to fight to preserve guitar making (and U.S. jobs)!

Chuck e/others , thank you for all your hard work in helping your fellow luthiers.I sincerely hope this gets resolved one day.Personally I feel the whole issue is highly politicized, and as usual , the independent luthiers and small shops are the ones getting screwed.

Whoa! A Lacey Act discussion that's sane, responsible and reasonable! That's a first and a really good sign that things might get worked out instead of the off-the-wall nonsense that's been spouted on this and other forums previously. Well done, everyone! And, yes, many thanks to Chuck, David, et al. who have worked intelligently and constructively on this issue -- we are all in your debt.

So, are your trying to derail that, Rick?

Chuck, thank you for your continued efforts and for keeping us updated. Much appreciated.

"So, are your trying to derail that, Rick?"

Not at all! All I meant was to congratulate everyone rather than take any sides. There wasn't a trace of sarcasm in my remark -- I really thought that this whole thread is respectful and thoughtful. Even if people have differing opinions they expressed them without hyperbole. And that's good!

[quote="Rick Davis"]"...discussion that's sane, responsible and reasonable..."

I suspect that CharlieT was referencing the above quote, in good humored jest of course!

Today I called to get paperwork for a transaction of BRW from France. Thank you Chuck and Dave for the education. Things went very well. The process was reasonably painless but it was legal and all T's are crossed and I's dotted. All this work that you did was worth it. Should you meet up with me , Beers on me.
Thanks , this hard work is paying off.

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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