Monday, April 10, 2017

Rosewood Restrictions in CITES

Import restrictions have gotten to the point where the use of Rosewood, a historical standard for guitar fingerboards, looks to be at an end.  

Much has been written about the new CITES restrictions, with one of the best articles HERE written by the popular music gear website, Reverb.

Fender guitars, according to Reidys Home of Music, is replacing Rosewood with Pao Ferro which is similar to rosewood.

Kiesel/Carvin Guitars once used rosewood as its default for most fingerboards, is now using Ebony.   

Acoustic guitar builders have long used rosewood as a body wood.  Last December, Breedlove Guitars wrote about the new regulations in an article titled, "CITES Expands the Appendix II Listings to Include All Rosewood, Cocobolo and Bubinga."  

For those concerned about traveling with their prized, Rosewood adorned guitar, check out this Aug 2016 video from "The North American Guitar."


One of my favorite magazines, The Fretboard Journal, did a short podcast in December 2016 about the updates which can be found HERE.  

With tone woods becoming increasingly difficult to harvest, import and export, the golden days of guitar that we have all enjoyed over the past 10 years or so may be coming to a close.  Looking at the issue through a wider sense, this could be a positive development both for the industry and for the management of our favorite tone woods.  In the meantime, if you've had your eyes on a specific instrument with Rosewood features, you might want to act soon while stocks of the prized wood are still on the shelves...

Stay tuned & in tune!