Did we talk about the 2017 CITES regulations yet?

It's kind of a goat-fuck so far. I'm not entirely opposed to it on merits of conservation and regulation but even DFW has told us they don't know how to handle it yet. I'm more concerned about the fact that when I ship to say, Germany, it's not US customs, it's their customs that enforces it. That means we could be dealing with 100's of different agencies worldwide.

Good news is, Kauer doesn't use Rosewood and Titan will also be moving to Wenge for international shipments. (If rosewood goes up in price next batch of necks, as I suspect it will, we'll be going to wenge full time).
 
I played a Martin with a micarta fretboard last week that was awesome. Save a playground, buy synthetic fretboard guitars.
 
I asked what documents I need to ship my guitars to Switzerland with the relocation company that is handling my move. The pretty much told me that no one cares unless they were purchased less than 6 months ago, and then the only concern is collecting VAT tax, not what they are made from. The rosewood issue seems to be limited to commercial manufacturers and retail sellers in terms of enforcement. Of course, a household move might not raise the appropriate red flags like a single guitar box shipment. As CITES uses the Swiss confederation as a depository for their governing charter, I assume enforcement in Switzerland is probably by the book.
 
As far as the wood issue goes, there are lots of alternatives to endangered woods that work great, so I don't really care about changing wood use rules to protect rainforests. The people that argue about Brazilian versus Indian rosewood are pretty funny on the interwbz.
 
I have two axes with roasted maple fretboards, and have never said to myself "Boy, I sure wish these had rosewood boards." There are a LOT of very fine alternatives to rosewood, but guitarists tend to be so damned conservative that they demand stuff just because that's what was used back in the day, without any regard for actual utility or other quantifiable positive attribute.
 
bsman said:
I have two axes with roasted maple fretboards, and have never said to myself "Boy, I sure wish these had rosewood boards." There are a LOT of very fine alternatives to rosewood, but guitarists tend to be so damned conservative that they demand stuff just because that's what was used back in the day, without any regard for actual utility or other quantifiable positive attribute.
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My concern is that this probably won't save any rainforests. Most of those forests are still going to be cut down to make way for plantations, grazing, and human habitation. Indonesia didn't wipe out their forests to make instruments. They did it to make palm oil.
 
I just put a Warmoth roasted maple neck on one of my Strats yesterday. I'm sold. I love that it doesn't need to be finished.
 
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