Mark Knopfler Guitar / My Knowledge of guitar

I was involved in a few discussions about the possibility of buying guitars with Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) from the US  – e.g. Fender Strats from the  early 60ies – on the Strat-Talk Forum. After talking with two officials from Germany’s authorities / customs I got some new information which I want to present with this blog post. In Short – Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia Nigra)Brazilian rosewood is the wood of fingerboards on many vintage guitars like Fenders or Gibsons from the 50ies or 60ies. Due to its endangered status, it was CITES-listed on Nov. 6 1992 in Appendix I (the most protected, same status as ivory or some turtle shells), and illegal to trade. Guitar manufacturers replaced it with other sorts of rosewood, e.g. Indian […]

I already reported in two previous blog posts (here and here) about the difficult situation we are facing when buying or selling guitars with parts of Brazilian rosewood (e.g. the fingerboard on vintage Fender or Gibson guitars). Yesterday I was on Germany’s biggest vintage guitar show in Oldenburg. Last year the show was cancelled due to exactly this issue – the problems of displaying guitars with Brazilian rosewood in public. This year Brazilian rosewood played a role again: there was an info booth where you could compare samples of different rosewoods and a workshop on Endangered woods on musical instruments with PD Dr. Gerald Koch from Hamburg University. Distinguishing Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) from similar rosewoods (e.g. Indian rosewood) is not easy (some info and […]