This is a factual account of the post-1960 history of Brazilian rosewood in US guitar production. Part 1 covers the effects of Brazilian rosewood availability changes on the CF Martin Company, the largest US importer and user of Brazilian rosewood for stringed instruments until 1967. Part 2 covers the 1992 protection from international trade for Brazilian rosewood and its effects on the musical instrument industry in the United States.
Key words: roller coaster; lament
Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) is arguably one of the world’s most beautiful woods, and inarguably also one of the most sought-after woods. An inspiring way to surrender one’s cares to an appreciation of nature’s artistry is to study the reddish and orange expertly sawn heartwood of good Brazilian rosewood, enhanced by seemingly random black grain lines, often with “spiderwebbing.” Some tropical hardwoods have the colors and grain characteristic of Brazilian rosewood (e.g. ziricote, Amazon rosewood), but good Brazilian rosewood is special in the way the colors, grain, and figure interact, worth many second looks.
Beginning in the early 16th century, when Brazilian rosewood became available in Europe, craftspeople used it for diverse items that required wood with beautiful color, strong grain, stability, and significant hardness, such as high-end furniture, small implements, and picture frames. Brazilian rosewood is very resonant and when a relatively thin piece, such as a guitar back “blank,” is struck it rings like almost no other wood, hence its widespread use for xylophone keys. Luthiers adopted the wood very early and until the late 1960s the phrase “rosewood back and sides” in guitars almost always meant “Brazilian rosewood back and sides,” the standard of the trade, the wood that would never lose its appeal. In the United States, CF Martin and to a far lesser extent other guitar makers historically used tens of thousands of board feet of imported Brazilian rosewood annually for many of their acoustic guitars. The Martin D-28, OM-28, and OOO-28 were the iconic examples of Brazilian rosewood use in production guitars, guitars known to most acoustic guitar players and to a great many listeners, some of the best-selling acoustic guitars in history (Photo 1).
But, at the beginning of 1970 Martin switched completely from Brazilian rosewood to East Indian rosewood (Dalbergialatifolia) for the backs and sides of their rosewood series guitars (style 21 and above), and for the bridges (Photo 2) and fingerboards of the mahogany series (Style 20 and below, including the Style 21 which had rosewood backs and sides), plus the peghead overlays and bridge plates of all guitar models. What had been the routine wood of choice (and of relatively little expense) for those fine guitars was suddenly replaced, to the dismay of Martin enthusiasts, by an “impostor (East Indian rosewood) masquerading as a good tonewood”–to this day many such people mark Martin’s purported “decline” as beginning in 1970, solely because of the wood change. Indeed, 1969 Martin guitars with Brazilian rosewood backs and sides routinely command thousands of dollars more in the used guitar market than do the rare 1969 guitars with East Indian rosewood backs and sides. But, I heard firsthand back in 1965 and again in the late 1960s from Martin management the reasons for the switch, and I can attest that Martin had little choice in the matter and, contrary to what others have lamented, Martin quality of construction and wood selection did not slip one bit during and after the switch. Also, guitars made with decent quality East Indian rosewood are for all intents the tonal equal of those made with Brazilian rosewood (allowing for the subjectivity of evaluating tone), and East Indian rosewood with strong color and contrasting grain can very often hardly be distinguished from Brazilian rosewood.
Despite persistent assertion, Martin did not drop Brazilian rosewood because it was listed as an endangered species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendix I. CITES did not exist when Martin switched rosewood species in 1970—CITES member nations ratified the CITES international treaty in 1975 and CITES listed Brazilian rosewood as a species protected from international trade in 1992, 22 years after Martin switched rosewood species. Martin also most assuredly did not drop Brazilian rosewood because a mythical fire destroyed its Brazilian rosewood stock, another persistent rumor, a product of infertile imagination. A few factors came into play beginning in the early 1960s, largely attributable to Martin’s supply side methods. Martin, for most if not all, of its existence had imported hundreds of whole Brazilian rosewood logs annually, either directly or through brokerages managed by individuals who were expert at storing, drying, and seasoning the logs until they were ready for re-sawing. The only Brazilian rosewood acceptable for Martin guitars was quarter-sawn, that is, sawn lengthwise perpendicular to the growth rings in quartered sections of logs. Back and side sets were sawn parallel to the quartered cuts, a meticulous task that required much knowledge and experience with log structure. This approach resulted in vertical or near-vertical grainbacks and sides, Wood that was as strong and stable as it could be. Martin contracted out that part of the resaw work to local, carefully trained sawyers. Martin then stored the rough wood in upper-level lofts in the Martin factory building for up to several years with warm circulating air, until the wood was fully dried and ready to use. Thus, Martin controlled completely their Brazilian rosewood importation, sawing, selection processes, storage, and use (some years later Martin adopted controlled environment chambers to season and dry hardwood sets). But, by the mid-1960s, Brazilian rosewood logs imported to the US were diminishing in diameter, a likely result of egregious overharvesting. Fewer back sets were wide enough for the dreadnought rosewood guitars such as the D-28, at the time at the top of the Martin hierarchy, Martin’s longtime flagship guitar. To use those smaller sets, Martin designed the D-35 with its three-piece back (Photo 3). Martin introduced the D-35 and D-12-35 in autumn 1965 and although the D-35 has never sold as well as the D-28, the new models were indeed a worthy way to use undersize Brazilian rosewood sets. They were and are great guitars.
The most important interruption in the Brazilian rosewood supply came in 1967 when Brazil banned the export of whole Brazilian rosewood logs. To justify that action, Brazil echoed the observation that Brazilian rosewood logs were by then much smaller in diameter on average, and that unrestricted harvesting and export of whole Brazilian rosewood logs was denying Brazil fair compensation for a limited native resource. Other accounts, including Martin’s, have said that Brazil acted because they wanted to attract industry. Either way, the supply of whole Brazilian rosewood logs in the US dwindled rapidly, and the end of log imports meant that Martin had far less control over its components . Brazil still allowed the export of Brazilian rosewood lumber, but much of that wood was unusable for guitars and in any case most was snapped up in the US by the cabinet and furniture industries, and purportedly by “van conversion” services—the ultimate custom van interior of that period is said to have included Brazilian rosewood panels. I amnot sure of how much of the “van conversion” story I believe, but it hovers near zero and I have not heard of enthusiasts scouring junk yards for Brazilian rosewood in old vans. The cabinet and furniture industries easily outbid Martin and other instrument makers for Brazilian rosewood lumber usable for fineguitars, by then an extremely rare commodity. Martin saw what was coming and prepared to replace Brazilian with East Indian rosewood.
By late 1969 Martin had exhausted its Brazilian rosewood stock. The company had produced a few guitars with East Indian rosewood backs and sides late in 1969, along with guitars made with the last of the Brazilian rosewood stock. Then, on January 1, 1970, Martin switched to East Indian rosewood as a permanent replacement for Brazilian rosewood. That change reflected a few years’ planning, decisive timing from the end of one year to the beginning of the next, and, most importantly, it’s hoped that it would take much more than a change in material specifications to cause Martin any concern at all, let alone to stumble. East Indian rosewood was a virtually perfect replacement—the wood is beautiful, often with stunning grain and sometimes figure, just different from Brazilian rosewood. Martin could again import whole logs and thus could again control the wood selection, preparation, sawing, storage, and use.
To its credit, Martin made the switch without fanfare and without apology, and the “Brazilian rosewood lament,” that seemed to have become the critic’s rallying cry, never swayed the company in the least. For the D-45 and the first years of the HD-28 Martin used very high-grade East Indian rosewood that displayed spectacular quarter-sawn contrasting grain, often difficult to distinguish from Brazilian rosewood (Photo 4). Martin still had an inventory of Brazilian rosewood backs and sides “seconds” sets, which they sold in 1982 to the Euphonon luthier supply company in New Hampshire. Euphonon marketed those sets beginning about spring 1983, and they sold out. quickly. Some years later Walter Lipton, the founder of (now closed) Euphonon, assured me that were was good reason for calling those sets “seconds”— none would ever have approached Martin’s standards. Euphonon offered and sold out these seconds for about $125 per set, significantly more than for any readily available tonewood in those days.
For the next nine years from 1983 through mid-1992 Brazilian rosewood was essentially extinct in US lutherie, although enough from various older sources was available in the US so that one could commission a custom guitar with Brazilian rosewood back and sides from some luthiers at a premium. Then, in 1992 Brazil petitioned CITES member nations to list Brazilian rosewood in CITES Appendix I. CITES Appendix I-listing bars listed species, including items made with listed species, from international trade, with a few exceptions such as scientific research and, at the time, “salvaged” wood. Any Appendix I species export requires a CITES export permit including associated documentation. At the other end, most importation of Appendix I species requires a CITES import permit, which is far more than a formality and is one CITES way of monitoring the legitimacy of the export permits. At the1992 CITES meeting, Brazil’s representatives stated that Brazilian rosewood was clearly declining rapidly throughout the species’ range, that harvesting all that rosewood had already at least partially caused the loss of the Atlantic Forest in coastalBrazil and was still contributing significantly to tropical deforestation, that the extinction of the species without CITES protection was probably inevitable, and that exploitation in the face of unrestricted international trade was impossible to control–without CITES Appendix I protection, once the wood left Brazil (or anywhere else) it was often a free for all. CITES granted Appendix I status for Brazilian rosewood effective June 11, 1992. Brazilian rosewood remains the only Appendix I listing for any wood, an indication that the signatory nations (which now number 184 plus the European Union of the 198 nations on the planet) concurred with Brazil’s concerns and with the immediate need to ban international trade in Brazilian rosewood. However, an exception in the form of a CITES “Non-Detrimental Finding” regarding exports supposedly of salvaged wood paradoxically became the reason for increased (not decreased as intended by CITES Appendix I listing) exports of Brazilian rosewood from Brazil, as detailed in part 2.
Photo captions
Photo 1. The two-piece quarter-sawn Brazilian rosewood back of a 1963 Martin D-28, with characteristic orange color interspersed with black grain lines. Photo by S. Arnopole.
Photo 2. Quarter-sawn rosewood bridge blanks. Left to right: “Brown” East Indian rosewood; “Purple” East Indian rosewood; three Brazilian rosewood bridge blanks of different colors and grain structure, cut from wood imported to the US during the early 1960s; a Madagascar rosewood blank, included because this wood was frequently used as a Brazilian rosewood substitute; an African ebony blank, included here to show the strong color and grain differences between ebony and rosewoods. Photo by S. Barry.
Photo 3. The three-piece quarter-sawn Brazilian rosewood back of a 1965 Martin D-35, the first or second D-35 that Martin shipped to the retail trade when production began. Photo by D.Zepp.
Photo 4. The very high-quality quarter-sawn East Indian rosewood back of a 1977 Martin HD-28, the first full year of production for that model. Note the strongly contrasting grain and the arching figure, desirable East Indian rosewood characters. This guitar sounds excellent, the tonal equal of any D-28 that I have ever played. Photo by S. Barry.
