Ivory Keys banned?

[Stephen Birkett]

Steven wrote:
>I was talking to a Steinway authorized tech/dealer and was asking him
>about ivory keys because when they rebuilt my action, they replaced the
>ivory with some new material and he said that Steinway officially stopped
>using ivory in either 1972 or 1982 (I think it was 1982)...BUT I know
>that there are still legal ways to get ivory in the US...I just don't
>know how one goes about doing that.  I would have thought that , of all
>companies, Steinway would have continued to use ivory (legally) on their
>grands.

Well, actually, from what I've read, Steinway NY stopped using ivory 
on their pianos much earlier than this,  in _1956_ some 33 years 
prior to the banning of ivory. The reasoning being practical issues 
rather than ethical ones, since ivory has so many problems attached 
to it as compared to plastic. Apparently, Steinway NY was one of the 
last US manufacturers to stop using ivory, too. [As for Steinway 
hamburg, I don't know when they stopped, or whether it was prior to 
the CITES ban, but they definitely continued after Steinway NY 
stopped].

The original question re: a 1947 US piano (I forget the make)....this 
was actually probably made toward the end of the use of ivory by US 
manufacturers.

Stephen