CITES for Rosewood

Has anyone else realised that if you ever sell an item from the post war period that contains rosewood you by law must have a CITES license from the Wildlife Licensing & Registration Service in Bristol. This means all Scandinavian mid century furniture and any nice Beomasters, Beovox's in rosewood now must legally have a CITES A10 transaction specific certificate at a cost of £31 to sell it, increasing to £65 next year

Apparently ebay are starting to crack down on this so could we soon see it becoming increasingly difficult to buy or sell some of our older stereos.

As I read it, the regulations for Rio-Palisander is that
it's no longer allowed to deal with it in the form of woodtrunks, boards and veneer unless
you have a special permission.

The selling of finished products containing Rio-Palisander is not affected.

Martin

It's clear to see that B&O didn't use the same sort of rosewood for all their rosewood models.
I have now asked them for the latin names of the sorts they've used.

Martin

Unfortunately that's not correct. I only heard about this when some lovely Merrow Associates furniture in at an auction house that I was viewing was withdrawn from sale. Every item that has rosewood must have a certificate if it was made after 1947. It's only Brazilian rosewood that it's needed for but as the test to find the species is invasive and costs £120 per item and the licence is £31 you're better off just getting the licence.

Basically it's a law which has never really been enforced but I know for a fact that auctioneers are now having to do it for every mid century bit of furniture. In auction catalogues they now state that CITES A10 non transferable licence is present by each lot that needs it.

Here's an example of what auction houses are having to do now.

 

 

http://www.tennants.co.uk/Catalogue/SearchResults.aspx?keywords=Merrow

Many auction houses are not doing this yet but they are cracking down on it so you can expect it to become more widespread.

 

 

I would suggest that most 'rosewood' is actually something else. I think a description of dark wood finish would cover it.

Peter:

I would suggest that most 'rosewood' is actually something else. I think a description of dark wood finish would cover it.

More true than many know I think. An interesting story, I have a friend who is a woodworker and master craftsman, he is also a luthier. He got a rosewood dining table in that some numb nuts had tried to refinish using a belt sander. The edges of the table were solid rosewood, but of course the large table top was very thin veneer. This was a very expensive table, and the owner was hyper critical.

I saw pictures of his restoration. First he took the sander and removed all rosewood on top of the table, smoothed it and polished if finely, then painted it bright orange. (The table was irretrievably gouged up, the rosewood veneer was not salvageable.) Then the further pictures showed him painting layers of black and red paint over it. By the time he was done, it looked like rosewood and exactly matched the edges. Absolutely the work of a master craftsman and the people who owned the table were ecstatic at the result. May seem like a dodge, but there was no other repair option, and it's amazing what a master craftsman can accomplish.

So, yes, I think you are right!

That's true, we could just not call it rosewood. It's just if ebay crack down on it, it would be a shame. They've done similar things in the past. I bought a fruit machine from eBay a couple of years ago for some fun. I went to sell it 6 months ago and was told I needed a gaming license! It was rather tricky to get rid of because ebay, gum tree and various other common ways to sell things had all realised that its illegal to sell a fruit machine unless you get the right paperwork.

OK, US guy question here, what's a fruit machine?

A one armed bandit - a gambling machine as seen in Las Vegas - not sure what you call them - a slot machiine?

Peter:

A one armed bandit - a gambling machine as seen in Las Vegas - not sure what you call them - a slot machiine?

Ah, thanks! Slot machine is what we call them.

Two people separated by a common language indeed.

One armed bandit works equally well.   There are currently 3,458 items on eBay that contain the phrase "Brazilian rosewood" so apparently there hasn't been a crackdown by them yet.

Its been law for a while but no one enforced it basically because no one really knew. They are getting very strict with auction houses at the moment and I expect that someone will have a word and ebay will have to soon do the same.