Shipping "Jacaranda" Versus Brazilian Rosewood

[Sigmania]

With the the perennial debate over whether "Jacaranda" is Brazilian, I wondered if it is ok to ship “Jacaranda“ re: CITES?

Wondering if this is a way to skirt regulations in some way.

CITES site:

https://cites.org/eng/app/appendices.php









Looks like these folks (Sustainable Forest Products) look at Jacaranda as D nigra.

Timber Species Listed in CITES (as of 10/2012; excluding species used for medicinal, traditional or ornamental purposes) | Sustainable Forest Products

Dalbergia nigra​

Listing Applies To:

All parts and derivatives, including manufactured and finished products,4 from any country of origin.

Natural Distribution:

Brazil

Common and Trade Names:

Brazilian rosewood, babia rosewood, bahia rosewood, caa-biuna, cabeuna, cabiuna, cabiuna do mato, cabiuna rajada, comore, camboriuna, caviuna, jacaranda, jacarada cabiuna, jacaranda de Brasil, jacaranda wood, jacaranda-da-bahia, jacaranda-preto, jacaranda-rajado, jacaranda-roxo, jacarandaholz, jacaradanda de Brasil, legno di jacaranda, madeira de palisandro, marnut, palisander, Rio rosewood.

Common Uses (selected):

Furniture, veneers, cabinetmaking, musical instruments, flooring, carving and sculpture.

 

[Sigmania]

I just spotted this and am wondering if Jacaranda is a broad reference that can include rosewoods from parts of the world other than Brazil?

Similar to the mahogany Tokai sources from Africa versus Honduras?

Types of Rosewood​

The timber known as rosewood belongs to the Dalbergia genus. The rosewood species have several subgenera, which interlinks the species. Rosewood grows in India, Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, Central America, and Southeast Asia.
Appendix I

Dalbergia Nigra

Brazil

The wood possesses a sweet yet strong smell

Appendix II

Dalbergia Latifolia	Indonesia	Grown in Pakistani plantations but native to India
Dalbergia Maritima	Madagascar	Highly sought after due to its pronounced red color
Dalbergia Oliveri	Burma	It has a very dense grain and is fragrant
Dalbergia Retusa	C. America	It comes from all over Central America
Dalbergia Sissoo	Bangladesh	Excellent for crafting furniture, resilient to termites

Appendix III

Machaerium Scleroxylon	Bolivia	Not a genuine rosewood but has many qualities
Pterocarpus Indicus	New Guinea	The national tree of the Philippines

"It goes without saying how rare, exotic, and endangered rosewood has become worldwide. In Francophone (French) West Africa, the forests of Senegal are one of the last remaining strongholds of genuine rosewood in the world."

Importing Rosewood: How to Comply with CITES and the USDA - USA Customs Clearance

 

[Sigmania]

Dalbergia Latifolia (Indonesia)

East Indian Rosewood Lumber

 

[Sigmania]

Dalbergia Maritima (Madagascar)

Madagascar rosewood

 

[Sigmania]

Dalbergia Oliveri (Burma)

http://adamcottrill.ca/material/burmese-rosewood

 

[Sigmania]

Dalbergia Retusa aka Cocobolo (Central America)

Cocobolo | Lichty Guitars

 

[Sigmania]

Dalbergia Sissoo (Bangladesh)

sissoo rosewood

 

[Sigmania]

Similar to rosewood:

Machaerium Scleroxylon (Bolivia)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...amples-for-electron-microscopy_fig1_316648337





Pterocarpus Indicus (New Guinea)

 

[Sigmania]

I am getting the sense that the term "Jacaranda" may have been used by Tokai as a blanket term for a variety of species used that may be sourced in small batches and changes as supplies change?

And given that Tokai is in Japan it would make sense that the sources would be in Asia or Africa more often than the Americas.

Just my hunch.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Yes, that is extremely confusing, apparently Jacaranda means different things in Australia or Brazil and possibly in Japan respectively . What's a problem though is that for the CITES conservationists, "Jacaranda" is just another name for Dalbergia nigra. Here's the situation in Germany (and likely other EU countries as well, even though not all of them may be that eager to bother with this confusing stuff):

http://www.rio-palisander.de/index-english.htm
Someone here mentioned recently that he never had a problem importing guitars, I did that last time in 2019 and wasn't asked what the fretboard is made of either but it's also a fact that German Customs officers have confiscated guitars a few times.

One of the aggravating things (to me) is that it's still not clear to me who has to prove what, if there's such an ambiguity like "Jacaranda" and actual Dalbergia nigra being possibly different things in the country of origin when I want to import a guitar and that someone who just wants to sell, buy or import a guitar for personal usage apparently needs a degree in dendrology with additional training in worldwide interpretation of wood names now, to stay out of trouble. :/

 

[Sigmania]

Yeah, I was trying to dig into that. What I saw was that there is a CITES certificate that the shipper has to get. So my question would be who issues those and how do they determine the wood species if it is not a new item with a clear provenance??

 

[Sigmania]

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/regulations/vs/iregs/products/downloads/fws-cites.pdf

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Do you have a better scan of the last page of the Vol. 3 catalog than The World of Musical Instruments Brochures - Tokai guitar catalog 1980 Page 1 by chance? The handwritten LS200 specs in the table at the bottom elude OCR (or human recognition for that matter) and I wanted to see if it states anything else than "rosewood" for the fretboard.

It seems the second to last (above the prices) line may contain more than the information about the finish, otherwise it seems there is no mention of the fretboard material at all?



I just want to double-check though - all the other 80s catalogs listing the LS200 only say "rosewood". Triggered by the "Brazilian..." thread and a current offer in Berlin I checked a number of LS200 sales on Reverb and most of them claim it would be "brazz", one even delivering a pretty ridiculous "I compared it with other guitars" kind of proof. All of these ads conveniently fail to show meaningful pictures of the fretboards though.

It's probably not impossible that Tokai could have used Dalbergia nigra in the 80s, I'm just not sure how likely (as in "how expensive") that would've been, and whether or not anyone would've even cared at that time. Let's not forget that the Dalbergia genus has like 200 species, some are spectacular direct substitutes and probably much harder to tell from D. nigra than anything else.

But just of all in the 2000s they sell guitars actually alluding BR ("Jacaranda"), which seems much less likely after 1992. In this context, I found this very interesting blog article by TCGakki. According to this, "Jacaranda" could refer to "New Jacaranda".

It's not like there is no Dalbergia nigra in the wild anymore, there is legally reclaimed wood, plenty of super fishy "Brazilian rosewood" offers on eBay and a few probably serious wood dealers selling that stuff, but the prices seem prohibitive (a single fretboard would be well in the 3-digit range, bottom, body and sides for a dreadnaught are typically $1,500-$2,500, finished guitars typically $9,000-12,000) and I can only assume that it wasn't much different in the early 2000s.

Edit: Customer (shop) selecting Madagascar rosewood fretboards at Tokai:

 

[Sigmania]

Is this what you needed?

I can scan it again if you can't get the tiny characters at the bottom.

I don't see anything about rosewood.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Holy smokes that is crisp! TYVM!

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

I don't see anything about rosewood.

Neither do I. I also translated the other text blocks on the first pages of Vol. 3, no mention of fretboards at all.

 

[guitar hiro]

Do you have a better scan of the last page of the Vol. 3 catalog than The World of Musical Instruments Brochures - Tokai guitar catalog 1980 Page 1 by chance? The handwritten LS200 specs in the table at the bottom elude OCR (or human recognition for that matter) and I wanted to see if it states anything else than "rosewood" for the fretboard material at all.

I just want to double-check though - all the other 80s catalogs listing the LS200 only say "rosewood". Triggered by the "Brazilian..." thread and a current offer in Berlin I checked a number of LS200 sales on Reverb and most of them claim it would be "brazz", one even delivering a pretty ridiculous "I compared it with other guitars" kind of proof. All of these ads conveniently fail to show meaningful pictures of the fretboards though.

That would have fit perfectly here

https://www.tokaiforum.com/threads/...lian-rosewood-or-not.28521/page-2#post-213883

 

[guitar hiro]

here's an example I have owned for quite some time.
me and another member had a quite spirited debate as to what actually is the species of lumber in the below photos.
neither of us can be sure of what species it actually is but it is 'real' wood. LOL
there are areas of color tones alternating brown, black, tan, red and close to a pink.
It's a pretty crazy looking board; I like it, a lot.
I could never agree to ship this guitar internationally for multiple reasons.

I have seen a few Gibson LPs from the 1950s that had boards that look nearly identical; I think this could be maple.

 

[Homeras]

Some kind of jacaranda

 

[guitar hiro]

I think it's actually mapleranda