CITES and Vintage Guitars

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an international agreement put in place and accepted by all governments worldwide. To make a broad, sweeping statement, CITES is in place to protect endangered, natural history. Why is this information being pre-ambled here at JTKM STUDIO? This is because our precious and often very personal instruments may contain Dalbergia Nigra, informally known as Brazilian Rosewood. Brazilian Rosewood was first listed on the CITES Appendix 1 in 1992 and appeared on Annex A from 1997. This therefore means that sales of a vintage guitars containing Brazilian Rosewood post appearing on Annex A in 1997 require a CITES Article 10 Certificate.

The Article 10 Certificate enables the owner of a vintage guitar containing Brazilian Rosewood to do the following, among other things:

Display to the public for commercial purposes
Transport for sale
Offer for sale
Use for commercial gain in any way.

It is a requirement to state the Article 10 Licence number when doing any of the above; including on website listings, third party websites such as eBay or Reverb, auction catalogues, magazines and various other forms where a vintage guitar containing Brazilian Rosewood is being presented for commercial gain.

There is significant complexity in obtaining an Article 10 Certificate as such requires known history, which isn’t always easy to obtain for a guitar that is 60 to 70 years old. Vintage guitars often swap hands multiple of times during their life and it is not always possible to track their known locations over such a period. Vintage guitars are also often inherited which could either render their past as absolute known or unknown.

We must stress that you are exempt from needing an Article 10 Certificate to own a vintage guitar containing Annex A CITES specimens, but one is required if you wish to present such an instrument for commercial gain, as stated above.

Although JTKM STUDIO do believe that vintage guitars containing Brazilian Rosewood should be exempt from CITES restrictions, we are pleased to say that JTKM STUDIO comply with all worldwide regulations for the legal trade of vintage guitars containing Brazilian Rosewood. We are proud that our vintage guitars are part of world natural history and deserve the respect needed to present such pieces to the world. It is important to us that our customers can enjoy their vintage guitar purchase with the knowledge they may be able to legally turn a profit if they chose to sell their vintage guitar in the future.

Everything CITES Article 10 Certificate/Export permit related, and the legal trade of Annex A specimens can be found on the UK Government website found below:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/endangered-species-certificates-for-commercial-use

JTKM STUDIO offer an agent based CITES Article 10 service (and possible re-export service) for clients either wishing to sell their vintage guitar to us, consignment sale through JTKM STUDIO or for their own commercial use. This service is for UK residents only.

The service we offer is as follows:

Initial telephone call to discuss the instrument and its history
Assistance collating and checking of application documentation
Formal application submission
Special return delivery if the application is successful.

It generally takes 1 to 4 weeks for an application decision to be made.

If you want to legally sell your vintage guitar containing Brazilian Rosewood and would like to use our service, contact us on info@jtkmstudio.com to book your initial phone call.

Here at JTKM STUDIO we keep up-to-date with any changes to the CITES rules and will amend this article accordingly.

email: info@jtkmstudio.com

Telephone: (+44) 07904079169

VAT Registration number: 443063126