Anne, With respect, the letter of the import regulations still allows customs officials to confiscate any/all ivory they encounter. In the spirit of enforcement, they have ruined the keyboards of several instruments I have seen, including some with irreplacable 19th Cent. fancy work. Ripped a full set of keys off a Pleyel art case. As Jacques Clouseau once said, "not any more"... As this seems to be yet another area where the only consistency is inconsistency, the only way to avoid the problem is to completely avoid it. Age of the item has been deemed to be irrelevant as often as not. Sorry. Horace At 05:07 PM 12/9/97 -0500, you wrote: >At 01:07 PM 12/9/97 -0500, you wrote: >>Peter, >> >>Is it illegal to own a piano with ivory keytops? Is it illegal to replace >>missing ivory keytops with recycled ivory keytops? Dave mentions a product >>called "Ivorine" which you state contains ivory. I do not believe this >>material contains ivory, if it did, wouldn't it be illegal to manufacture? >> >>Does anyone know what the real laws are regarding ivory as it applies to our >>profession? >> >>John Piesik >> >> > > You may own such an instrument, you may replace keytops with recycled >ivory keytops. The problems happen when importing ivory. Then it gets >nasty. In the spirit of discouraging fresh ivory collection, the import >offices are overconservative about importing good made of ivory. It is >necessary to prove the age of the item. I'm not sure what the precise >requirements are. > > > > >Anne Beetem >Harpsichords & Historic Pianos >2070 Bingham Ct. >Reston, VA 20191 >abeetem@wizard.net > > > Horace Greeley Systems Analyst/Engineer Controller's Office Stanford University email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu voice mail: 650.725.9062 fax: 650.725.8014
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC