Exporting music instruments to the USA

[peter.coombe]

With all this Lacey Act stuff in the USA some of you might find this useful

Tips for exporting musical instruments to the USA

I have just send a mandola to the US and it went through US Customs without any problems so I thought I would write this up to help anyone else who is thinking of sending an instrument to the USA. Follow this procedure and all should be well. I am assuming the instrument is worth more than $2000 USD, and the customer is paying for it so it then is a “commercial” shipment to the USA.and needs to be formally cleared in the USA.
Note that this is going to take some time. Assume about 3 hrs work, but at least you won’t need to spend hours and hours reading and researching what is required which is what I had to do.

(1) First thing to do is to be careful what woods you build with. Don’t even think about anything that is CITES listed. So, Brazilian Rosewood is out. Even if only used for bindings, forgetaboutit. Also don’t use any wood from high risk countries such as Madagascar, Indonesia or Malaysia. Illegal logging is rampant in these countries and will raise the red flag. Australian native woods are good.
(2) As you build, weigh each individual piece and note down the weight. Weights don’t need to be exact, they are not interested in exact amounts for such small quantities. Weight of bone nut and shell inlay will also be required.
(3) As you get closer to finishing get your US customer to apply for a US Fisheries and Wildlife import/export permit. This is likely to take 6-9 weeks to be issued. Your customer will need to contact their local F&W office. Here is the form http://www.fws.gov/forms/3-200-3.pdf
(4) Once you have finished the instrument, fill out the forms for plant material and if there is any animal material such as a bone nut or shell inlay, also the F&W form for wildlife. Send these forms to your customer, or the information they require if you can’t save the form. You will need the scientific names of all the species, the amounts and country of harvest. You won’t be able to fill out all of the forms, leave that to your customer since it is a US form and is their responsibility.
Plants
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/ ... ndex.shtml

Wildlife
http://www.fws.gov/le/pdffiles/3-177-1.pdf
http://www.fws.gov/le/pdffiles/3-177ins ... 022011.pdf
(5) Wait for the US import permit to be issued.
(6) When you pack the instrument, make sure you include an invoice inside the package that lists all the information contained on the above forms and the US F&W import permit number.
(7) On the outside of the package attach a notice that it contains wildlife and the import permit number.
(8) The package must also have 3 copies of the Australian Customs commercial involce form attached with your letterhead on the form.
(9) Also attach a list of all the woods and wildlife, with the import permit number listed – i.e. all the information that is on the forms above. Never use common names for woods, always use the scientific names. Common names can cause confusion and problems. This is not strictly necessary if you have done (6) & (7), but it is nevertheless a good idea to do it anyway.
(10) Send the package and give your customer the tracking number, they will need it. It is highly recommended to send via a courier. A customs broker is required in the US and couriers such as DHL include that in the price, although you will choke at the shipping cost (I don’t have the bill yet). Beware – UPS charges extra for this service. If you send via Australia Post that will cause hassles in the US since your customer will need to organise a customs broker and pay the brokerage fee. The cost will work out not too far off what a courier will charge. Australia Post is also problematic for larger instruments such as guitars because of the package size restrictions. The package needs to enter the USA via a “port of entry”, so make sure it goes through LA which is a “port of entry”. DHL always goes through LA and I think the other couriers do as well so that should be ok.
(11) Wait with fingers crossed for the package to arrive safely. Inform your customer that they will need to keep all the documentation, and pass it to the new owner if they sell the instrument.

[jeffhigh]

Shit!........... takes less for a tourist to enter

[MattW]

Thanks for posting this, and doing all the legwork.

Seems ANY importer is stuck with the documentation requirement you mentioned in the last point. So presumably an importer would need to pass this documentation on to the wholesaler, then to the retail outlets, who would then need to pass it on to whoever walks into the shop and buys the instrument, or table, or pool cue, or shell inlaid jewelry box etc. It doesn't just effect musical instruments. Either the whole system must be crumbling under the weight of its own legislated requirements, or the majority of the shipments aren't being checked. The feds certainly cant be following up down the track to check if the retail chains are passing the paperwork onto the buyer. There's just not enough Feds.

I wonder sometimes if laws aren't passed just to keep these people in jobs and give them an excuse to draw a wage.

[peter.coombe]

Shit!........... takes less for a tourist to enter

All too true I am afraid. I had no choice but to do the legwork. Chuck (the Duke of Pearl) has written a dissertation about this for the GAL and that was very useful, but I am very much relieved it passed through US Customs problem free.

[ChuckM]

Excellent post. Thanks for the time frames as well. The Lacey act also applies to interstate commerce within the US. I know that a good number (most?) luthiers in the US are sitting on piles of Brazilian Rosewood they paid a lot for and wonder if it's going to be possible to sell (or even advertise) instruments made from it. The recent raid on Gibson for Indian Rosewood, which shouldn't be a problem, has spooked a lot of folks here.

[Nick]

This should become a sticky Peter, great information from somebody who's actually been there, done that, & passed it on for the rest of us. Cheers.

[Kim]

Have just copied this topic making it a sticky in the tutorials forum. If anyone has input they feel will supplement Pete's information, please make your post in that topic as this one will be allowed to make its way to archives over time.

Nice work Peter, thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Kim

[nutsdan]

Thank You . That is brilliant. I am sure that we all apreciate the time and effort that you have saved us all.

[JJ model]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... _2FQY12GpM

[JJ model]

I'm from Malaysia so I cannot send anything built with wood here?

[matthew]

So what is to stop you simply writing the names of "allowed" woods on the lacey forms, and writing abelam instead of MOP, etc? Your customer knows what they are really getting, so there's no problem there.

If you do have some prohibited wood in there, how is anyone going to know what it is or where it came from? Are they going to DNA-test samples??

[kiwigeo]

If you do have some prohibited wood in there, how is anyone going to know what it is or where it came from? Are they going to DNA-test samples??

Why not?..the Feds have unlimited financial resources.....at least until US citizens stop paying tax.

As to establishing where the wood has come from.....the onus will be on the exporter to prove this to the Feds.

[jeffhigh]

There's not actually many common materials on a finished instrument that are intrinsically illegal because they are Cities listed
-Brazillian Rosewood
-Ivory

The species of shell that are banned are not those which are normally used in luthiery.\
Honduras mahogany is legal in a finished product.

The Lacey act however, as well as encompassing Cities materials, makes ANY material illegal if it has been harvested against the laws of the source country.

Ablam is made from real shell so you would still have to pay the $75 Permit fee

All this paperwork is just to get legal product into the USA

[peter.coombe]

I did write those tips with Australian Luthiers in mind who are not so likely to have woods from Malaysia. However, I can see no reason why you can't send woods from Malaysia so long as you have some form of documentation that proves the wood was legally harvested.

Remember that when you do send something to the USA, it is your customer that is taking the risk. If you misrepresent anything on the form, it is your customer who is beaking US law, not you, because as far as US authorities are concerned the importer is filling the form out. The Lacey Act is US law so the onus is on your US customer to prove where the wood came from and that it was legally harvested. The customer is of course dependent on you to provide the correct information. This is why the Lacey Act is killing sales in the US, hardly anyone is willing to risk bankrupcy and/or jail based on trust that the information we provide is correct.

[Allen]

I've been reading through this post again as I've seen some mention of parcels being held up at customs in the USA for weeks and while it might have been the weather they had in the East, or any one of countless reasons relating to piss poor service. But one of the questions asked was if a Lacey Form had been submitted. This was for a instrument that would have been under $1,000. Which got me thinking.

I've sent at least 10 instruments to the USA in the last year or so and never had a problem. Always declared under $2,000 and I was under the impression that as such they didn't require a Lacey form to be lodged.

Now I'm wondering if I have just been lucky that they got through.....or more to the point my clients.

Any insight into this from people in the know is greatly appreciated.

[peter.coombe]

I've sent at least 10 instruments to the USA in the last year or so and never had a problem. Always declared under $2,000 and I was under the impression that as such they didn't require a Lacey form to be lodged.

That is correct as far as I am aware, and is what US F&W told me. However, if the instrument contains any shell (no matter how small) then the US customer still needs to get an import permit, fill out the wildlife form and pay the inspection fee. US Customs does have risk controls where parcels are randomly picked and checked out for compliance, so maybe that is the reason for some delays. I have had a small number where the instrument was stuck in customs for over a week, and one where they charged import duties until I submitted the FTA documentation to prove it was exempt.

Peter

[Allen]

Thanks Pete.

It seems that when you jump over that $2000 threshold then it's got to be a big jump to warrant the extra cost to the client, work to the luthier, and the giant pain in the ass all this is.

No wonder I see comments from some really prominent luthiers that they no longer will ship to the USA, and some there that won't ship out of the country.

[peter.coombe]

The $2000 threshold is just extra paperwork, there is no additional cost (except for the time involved in preparing the paperwork). The main problem is the shell which is treated just like any other wildlife material. The cost or amount of shell is irrelevant.

Peter