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I'm preparing to ship a commissioned guitar to Europe (Austria) and was wondering how to handle the Customs declaration. Specifically, how do I declare the wood and inlay materials, and the value of the instrument and case. I would also like to put a very small bottle (fingernail polish size) of the colored lacquer that I used in the case in the event the owner needs to touch up a chip. Is that a potential problem?

I've shipped guitars domestically and feel good about my packing but anything I should know about the longer trip? Lastly - recommendations on the carrier - both UPS and FedEx are available to me.

You can go to UPS or Fedex and get the forms. It's a real pain in the ___ and you have to call someplace to get some kind of product number for VAT. I used to send mandolins and guitars to a UK store and I hated it so much I quit. I would absolutely think that a bottle of lacquer in the case is a NO. Fedex won't insure...
Good luck!

Thanks Haans, anyone else with any experience here? I have in front of me USFWS forms 3-200-32 which seems to cover woods, form 3-177 for the shell inlay, and Lacey Act 16 U.S.C. 3372 which also seems to cover the woods. The USFWS forms each has a fee of close to a hundred bucks and they say to allow 60 days for processing.

I have a Certificate of Export for my shell materials stating that they are not on the CITES list. All of the woods used in the guitar are not listed with the exception of the neck which is Honduran mahogany, listed in Appendix II, which is understand to apply only to raw wood, not the finished guitar.

I have some instruction from Chuck Erikson (Duke of Pearl) which helps me calculate how much shell is actually in the guitar for form 3-177. He states that woods are covered under "USDA/APHIS forms" but I can't figure out which ones.

I was hoping that someone who has done this could just briefly talk me thru the various parts or point to a link.

Check out DHL and USPS I think you'll find that they are much less expensive --- however, USPS does not offer insurance to all countries.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Maybe I am just an incompetent Googler? You'd think that if this such a big every day deal that there would be thousands of hits and horror stories from individuals that have actually been stymied by these new laws. After all through no fault of their own the general public is still clueless in these matter. What you get are the old Gibson stories.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Ken, like you I got lots of hits about people actually shipping, discussions of who is the best carrier, that sort of thing, but almost nothing about how to handle customs and the horror stories we hear about CITES. In fact I ran into an old friend last night and he said he had just shipped an acoustic to New Zealand - he said he didn't do any paperwork other than the declared value.

Once I wade through all of this I'll report back - might help someone in the future.

This is kind of interesting

http://www.forfeiture.gov/pdf/CBP/Offic ... cation.pdf

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I'm no expert, but...

I think most of those forms you have are for -importing- stuff. Lacey for sure is only about stuff coming into the US. I shipped a guitar to Sweden via Canada Post, and just declared the value. Do you need fish and wildlife to export? It seems to me that most forms are about the value and provenance of stuff coming in. Once it's in, the US seems mostly not to care about it going out.

If you have no CITES woods, do you need CITES paperwork?

As for VAT, if it's anything like USPS or Canada post, they will charge at the recipients post office, if at all. Much like I have to pay my local sales tax on items shipped from the states. The post office calculates and charges me for it, and I need to pay it before they release the package. It's not the vendors problem.

But definitely skip the bottle of lacquer, that changes everything as it is a dangerous substance.

Anyway, it's Ausria's import laws you need to look into.

Kinda makes you wonder who benefits from all this "Free Trade", doesn't it. We used to have tariffs, so did other countries. Now we have no tariffs, but the other countries have VAT. Sounds like a tariff to me...

Indeed it does...

Interestng indeed. Guns, money, drugs, computers and a bunch of Les Pauls valued suspiciously at or near US$300. There was even a "Gibson Fender Electric" guitar listed. It must be all in the training manual: All Les Pauls = $300. All "Gibson Fender Electrics" are Devil Spawn; handle with asbestos gloves and send to Townshend Department to be smashed.

Back to the topic: I'm kinda confused from the above discussion ... perhaps rightly so when complex international law is involved. Is it the export laws of the country of origin, or the import laws of the country of destination, we would need to worry about ? Or both ?

What is bizarre to me, is that my son and I used to run a rocket business. We sent rocket motors into Australia, South Africa, and the Netherlands all the time via USPS. We declared the contents' value, labeled the packages as Class 3 Low Explosives, paid a nominal hazardous materials fee of $25, and no questions were ever asked, except once concerning the validity of the quoted value. But try to send a guitar made of wood - Robbers! Muggers! Smugglers! Thieves! Go figure.

I'm wondering if the guys at LMI would be willing to help? I mean, they ship all manner of woods, CITES or not, world wide, yes? I'm sure they do this by wrote. And, they would be definitely helping their customer base.

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If thee meddle with dragon kin, thou will become crunchy and good with ketchup.

No, you're wrong VAT is not a tariff, it's an EU wide purchase tax. EU residents have to pay it whether buying from the USA or the shop next door. If a maker in the UK want to sell someone else in the UK a guitar, then they have to add VAT to the price. If someone in the UK buys a guitar from Germany or France say, then the VAT is automatically included in the price, and is not paid again in the UK. If a non-EU resident buys a guitar from a maker in an EU country, then no VAT is charged to the buyer, but of course you they have to pay import duties in their own country. Importing a guitar into an EU country, from outside of the EU means that the buyer is liable to pay the VAT on the purchase that is applicable in their own country.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

That is not true. The Lacey act applies to imports and exports. You do not have to fill out the Lacey act forms if the value is less than $2500 USD for exports, $2000 USD for imports into the USA. That is the legal situation, but you might get away with not filling out the forms especially for exports since F&W are mostly concerned about imports. If you declare a value less than $2500 then no problem.



If the wood is listed on CITES Appendix I (Brazilian Rosewood) then yes, absolutely you do need CITES paperwork. If listed on Apppendix II or III then no you don't. Your customer will also need to get a CITES import permit.

As with all things, you might get away with not conforming to the letter of the law, and enforcement of this stuff in most countries seems to be pretty loose, but if you get caught you are screwed. Customs in most countries have more important things to deal with such as illegal drugs and firearms.

Here is an excerpt from the US Dept of F&W FAQ taken from this link:
"Guitars
Do I need a permit to import or export my guitar? Some guitars contain wildife, such as mother-of-pearl. If you are importing your personal guitar that contains wildlife as accompanying baggage, you must declare the item on the Customs declaration form. Click here for information if you are commercially importing or exporting guitars that contain wildlife or if you are separately shipping your personal guitar that contains wildlife.

Some guitars also contain Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). This species is listed in CITES Appendix I, and may not be traded for commercial purposes. However, exceptions can be made for guitars that qualify as pre-Convention, i.e., contain rosewood that was obtained prior to June 11, 1992. Click here for an application form to export or re-export pre-Convention guitars. The guitar must enter or exit the United States through a plant designated port. Check with APHIS, the State, and foreign country to meet their requirements."

So it seems that, as far as the US is concerned, if the instrument contains no BRW or shell, it's no big deal for private owner or luthier. If you follow the links at the URL above (some are dead) you'll find the actual application form. You will see there that fees are semi reasonable too, like $100-200, with a "Master File" option that affords a kind of volume discount. In another related page, it states the magic number seems to be $2500 - if the value is less than that, again, it's no big deal and nobody cares.

Now, all this needs to examined in minute detail so you don't end up screwing yourself. And, this is only the US side. The other country involved will be a separate mess of laws...

I guess the thing that bothers me is that this process is so complex and expensive, a disincentive is automatically created. It's analagous to illegal immigration: it is so much easier to get into the US illegally, very few go to the trouble to do so legally, or can't afford to.

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If thee meddle with dragon kin, thou will become crunchy and good with ketchup.

OK, a brief update and thanks to all who have responded.

The guitar went into the mail today, it is the Lefty ES-335 with a thread on the Electric forum right now. First, I sent the guitar USPS standard delivery, shipping and insurance was $128. The value was listed at $2000 (yeah, the buyer is getting a heck of a deal) including the case. I was quoted shipping from $200 to over 900 from FedEx, UPS and a couple of the "pack and ship" places, the good old Postal Service was by far the cheapest (and I haven't heard anything bad about them).

You can fill out the USPS forms on line and actually buy the shipping permit. It is substantially cheaper to buy on line. Get two of the plastic sticky back envelopes from USPS (2976-E), one for the USPS and customs forms, one for your invoices.

As far as customs, CITES and Lacey - on my invoice (four copies) I added a section entitled Certificate of Export and listed all of the woods that are not in CITES. I then added that the guitar includes Honduran mahogany (S macrophylia) which is CITES Appendix II, and stated CITES only applies to raw wood in this case, not finished product (this was confirmed by a call to LMI where I got the wood, they said they cannot ship the boards but can ship a neck machined out of it). I also declared the shell by scientific name, stated that it also was not on the CITES list and included a Certificate of Export from my supplier.

The customs form that applies to this is 2976-A (or B) which can be filled out on line. Basically, you declare value, what the item is, country of origin. There is nothing about CITES on that form. Pretty straight forward.

My customer will pay the VAT in his country when the guitar arrives - I have heard that it is pretty expensive (something like 23%) - he knows that is his responsibility.

I think I got kind of paranoid about all the bad stuff - Gibson's experience with ebony, all the real or perceived issues with Braz, ivory, shell, etc. I knew that I had CITES Appendix II materials so I got proactive about all the reporting. It may not have been necessary but I learned a lot in the process.

There is only one more chapter to this little saga - reporting successful delivery to my customer in a week to ten days (and his final payment LOL).