Importing Or Transporting Concertinas Into The Usa

[JimLucas]

I remember looking into this years ago, long before the new regulations (which I haven't yet looked up). The US law at that time was interesting, in that its preamble said it was an implementation of the CITES treaty, while in fact it failed to properly implement several important provisions of the treaty. E.g., it had provisions for businesses to get licensed for restricted trade, but no provision for an individual to obtain approval for sale/transfer of even a single object containing material that could be certified as having been obtained pre-treaty. So if strictly interpreted, one could not even inherit an antique containing restricted material, though according to the CITES treaty, one could.

 

Another difficulty -- and it sounds like it's still the case -- is that in most (all?) countries validation was not handled by Customs, but by some other agency, yet there was no central registry of the name of the agency one needed to contact in each country. For both the UK and Germany, I eventually gave up trying to find out who one needed to contact... after drawing blanks from both embassies and trade missions.

 

One difference I find from reading the preceding posts, is the apparent possibility of getting a "passport" that will be recognized by all signatory countries. Back then, one needed to get separate authorization from each and every country that the object would be visiting. As noted in the previous paragraph, that could prove impossible, at least within a feasible timeframe.

[Frank Edgley]

I live on the border, in Windsor Ontario, right across from Detroit. I play a 120 year old set of Highland bagpipes, and cross over the border from time to time. I contacted CITES and was sent an application form for a CITES certificate, allowing me to bring my pipes legally across the border. I had that certificate with me when I went to Scotland to play with the Scottish Society of Windsor Pipe Band three weeks ago. The people at CITES were very helpful in issuing me the certificate. It is valid for several years, when the existing certificate can be used to expedite the next one.

[Dana Johnson]

I have heard too many sad stories regarding confiscation and even destruction of valuable and clearly pre CITES instruments. To ever travel with one. It isn't even that the people doing the confiscating really care about the issue. While there are highly concerned and principled people working in law enforcement in this field, the people who actually do the inspections of these kind of thing don't have the training or the tools to identify one material from another. I am not at all surprised that things get seized "on suspicion" since it takes all the work out of deciding what passes and what doesn't. The big thing is that it boosts your numbers when you are looking for a promotion. That an innocent person ends up having to pay a fine is all the better since it helps pay for the program.

I'd recommend anyone with a violin bow have the tip replaced with plastic, ( though if it is white, they still might nab it.) don't know what you are going to do about your finger boards or pegs though!

Made my daughter's concertina with Honduran rosewood from old peg head veneers from a guitar maker in the 60's. It's not going anywhere. Perhaps in a couple hundred years these species will be off the list. Something to look forward to. ( by then we'll be made of plastic!)

Dana

[JimLucas]

Musical instruments. Furniture. But there are also other places/items where rare woods are commonly used.

 

I'm wondering about all those fancy yachts, with rare wood in paneling and furnishings if not in functional parts (mahogany, anyone?). They enter ports in lots of different countries. I would think that by now we would have heard about at least one billionaire screaming when his boat was seized. Or does it not count if the boat doesn't leave the water?