I think if it turns out Gibson did have illegal woods in their warehouses and factories they will may have a hard time using any kind of "unknowing" defense.

Companies are expected to know the "chain of custody" of the woods they buy and import. It will be doubly hard for Gibson to make any claims that they unwittingly bought goods that originated in prohibited areas, or are from prohibited stock. Henry Juszkiewicz, The Gibsonc CEO also sits on the board of "The rainforest Alliance"

Part of their mandate is certification of of timber to verify it is harvested responsibly, and sustainably. They have a team of forestry professionals called their "Smartwood" team that scrutinize forestry operations and award certification to those companies they deem to have worked to their standards of sustainability. Gibson even has (or had, if they don't still,) a line of Smartwood guitars, tying themselves to this group.(A friend has one of those LP's, and it is VERY NICE!)

It seems to me that a company whose highest placed official is a member of that organization will have a very hard time justifying any kind of lapse in their procurement of lumber. His organization in fact helps oversee and helped set the standards Gibson is alleged to have broken.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Ooo - am I right, the page Troublecall linked to in the first post of this thread has since been updated? It now says that Juszkiewicz has just temporarily stepped down from the board of the Rainforest Alliance.

Wracking my brains to remember where, but I have read Juszkiewicz talking on this very subject, and sounding serious and committed. It would be amazing cynicism if all the time he knew his company was breaking the very rules he was elsewhere creating.

Innocent till proven guilty?

BTW: is Madagascan rosewood and ebony incredibly much cheaper than legally sourced woods? People fancy it as higher quality (rightly or wrongly) - but then since a guitar with a Madagascan rosewood fingerboard can't be marketed as such what would be the point of risking prosecution by using it?

So presumably it's a price advantage thing - what percentage of the manufacturing cost of a new Les Paul or J-200 is represented by the fingerboard? How much of a margin would the company be winning by trimming overheads in that area? (One for the financial analysts... )

Cheers - C

Though rosewood is terribly expensive (£3000 a cubic meter) I think Madagascan rosewood has a visual appeal.

Heres a Mcpherson MG 45. Madagascan rosewood back and sides


If thats a usuall example of the stuff theres every reason to see why everybody would want it. Compared to



BTW Ceri just to make Henry jealous, do you fancy this?
http://www.tonewood-supplies.co.uk/Stock/Back-and-sides/Madagascan+Rosewood.aspx
AAA grdae [sic] non the less.


After looking around the web I can certainly see why Gibson would want to use it's visual appeal to sell their overpriced acoustics.

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No no and no

'Zactly - that's the point. There is legally sourced Madagascar timber available, so there's got to be some special reason to bother taking the risk of importing the illegal stuff. Must be about cost - but can the saving be worth it?

On a related matter, Nick: I notice that the website of maybe the longest established and most respected tonewood supplier in our country, David Dyke, was offline for several hours this morning. I was starting to get nervous - but I see he's just come back up:

http://www.luthierssupplies.co.uk/

I do hope he has no reason to fear a knock on the door cos he's a great fella to do business with: his stuff is always excellent quality at a given price point. And he always seems willing to help out with (legal) non-standard requests.

Cheers - C

PS: damn, those are handsome guitars you pictured!

I just cant see it as a pricing issue. Gibson have never been afraid to charge. Infact they've pretty much set up their customer base by portraying themselves as, a cut above the rest.

I really think it comes down to aesthetics. Woodgrain sells guitars, thats why bursts are so popular over block colours. From time to time you still see people crop up asking for Brazilian rosewood boards. Given the fact that we've pretty much proved fretboard timber makes little difference, why would anyone want brazilian over indian.
Well Indian rosewood is generaly a lighter colour, theres fretboard dyes though. Closeness of grain maybe? Well I dont know much but I suppose you get close grain and wide grain cuts from the same tree. Particularly with thin fingerboards that you'd get a lot of out of a cubic meter of timber. At 80mm x 10 mm x 800mm you'd get around 1400 fingerboards out of a cubic meter. £3000 of material = 1400 fingerboards that sell for £9 each average
http://tinyurl.com/ykaqh6s
thats £12600 out of that cubic meter of wood. £9600 profit. Upkeep of machinery, employment costs and other expenses allow a very generous £4000 that still leaves £5000 profit.

Thats a very rough working out before anyone asks. For a start I suspect modern machinery would get far more than 1400 bass fingerboards out of a cubic meter of timber.

Now over to Jay to pick the bones out of that lot

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No no and no

Jay its legal in England. The source I found is an english shop. That doesnt help your plight in the USA if it is illegal to own it.

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No no and no

That exactly is my understanding of it.

Another question: we don't in fact know what sort of use Gibson was putting this timber to - or do we?

For instance: if this is fingerboard timber then there is just no conceivable reason to knowingly buy illegal timber. Any price differential would be such a tiny part of the finished guitar it couldn't possibly be worth the risk.

On the other hand, if Gibson are using it to make unusual, highly figured (and highly priced) acoustic guitars like the ones Niki pictured above, then all right, we can see what the temptation might be. Wood like that is hard enough to source in quantity that you might be prepared to go "off piste" to get it...

Seven pages into this thread we still need a lot more information!

Cheers - C

my inner cynic is watching this closely.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Hi,
Just thought I'd put my 2 cents in. About a year ago a friend of mine bought a "smart wood" Les Paul. In my opinion it was the worst sound Lester I've ever heard. No amout of knob or amp tweaks would make that thing come alive.

So rosewood now follows cocaine onto the list of supply and demand driven black market commodities. Very pretty.

Perhaps musicians ought to show the way by letting go of the mantra that "it ain't a sports car if it isn't a Ferrari", and refuse to purchase anything made from endangered species trees....rosewood of any kind, for example.

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"Another day in paradise!"

I am all for that as soon as they find a suitable replacement for Rosewood (color). I think ebony is on that list as well. Let's just hope that Fender is getting their Rosewood through proper channels.

It would be interesting to see a maple neck Gibson .

RK