From here:
Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
[….]
t isn’t just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next.
If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.
John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says “there’s a lot of anxiety, and it’s well justified.” Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, “I don’t go out of the country with a wooden guitar.”
I have nothing to worry about because all my guitars are made out of plywood and plastic, but this chap has a vintage Martin D35 that I’m sure has Brazilian rosewood on its back and sides. He is a mate of mine called Brian Ruttan; I can supply his address to any interested federal agents.
It would be laughable if it weren’t a situation that has harmed people already, and could harm many more.
So many instruments, not just guitars, like clarinets, harpsichords, bassoons, all the bowed strings like violins, contain bits of ‘protected’ wood. Of course, so many of them are decades or hundreds of years old, and have been rebuilt and continually tweaked–especially the ones used by professionals.
There is literally no way on earth to trace the provenance of every bit of wood in every viola tuning peg, clarinet barrel, drum or piano. And yet, we have a completely out-of-control government that can now demand that or confiscate instruments–many one-of-kind worth tens of thousands of dollars.
November 2012 cannot arrive soon enough. These people have got to go.
And in most cases these items end up sold at Federal Auction so I hope whoever gets it is given a certificate saying they are exempt from retuning BOW agents. (typo intended Bureau of Wood)
Do your walls hide contraband wood?
It gets worse: they sent in agents with automatic weapons:
Two obvious solutions: (1) Sue the government for harassment, and, while it goes on, (2) Move the company to China.
Pingback: People with guitars busted by heavy-handed Feds in 2011? at Roger Pearse