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#1
08-10-2012, 10:48 AM
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EU tightens noose on vintage instruments
I received the following email, forwarded from a dealer in Hamburg regarding vintage and new instrument sales in the EU that have ANY Brazilian rosewood on them. Germany it seems doesn't care anymore about CITES. They are going to prohibit the movement, repair, and sale of any instrument regardless of whether it's papered, that has Brazilian rosewood:
Here are the problems that we and also most other dealers, repair-shops, distributer had not been aware of since 1992. What we are not allowed to do with our retail store: No.1 Guitar Center in Hamburg This is general law in Europe: I would like to explain in my own words as follows.: 1) We are not allowed to sell Instruments with Brazilian Rosewood material. The only way is, when the instrument was in Europe before 1992 and is has a cites document. 2) We are not allowed to repair instruments with Brazilian Rosewood material. It doesn`t matter what the instrument has. The only way is, when the instrument was in Europe before 1992 and is has a cites document. 3) We are not allowed to buy instruments outside the European countries with Brazilian Rosewood. Business with Brazilian Rosewood is illegal. That means we cannot buy any vintage instruments with Brazilian Rosewood anymore and import it into Europe. We will not get an Import License from the customs. In total does it mean that most vintage dealers and repair-shops have a big turnover problem. If they do this and the government or customs find this out the law is so strong that you are on the same level as a heroin dealer. Some of our customers where the government toke theire instruments, mostly PRS and Martins cannot show cites and legal import papers, lost theire instruments and the fine that they have to pay is the value of the instrument. It is a very critical situation and we don`t know where the end is. We learn daily more and more and get letters from musicians what to do and why we did not inform them right in time. Why does the government take my guitar.??? Can we take the fretboard away from our PRS and give this to the government and let an Indian rosewood fingerboard glue on??? Etc etc. 
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#2
08-10-2012, 12:45 PM
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Whoa - that's harsh.
It's not surprising, though - when bureaucrats start regulating something, they're not interesting in fairness or anything else. whm
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#4
08-10-2012, 02:39 PM
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Excuse me for not being the slightest bit surprised .
The handwriting has been on the wall for quite some time . Other woods will soon follow .
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#6
08-10-2012, 03:53 PM
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Quote:
Seriously...what's next? *shakes head and sighs*
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