Guitars, Pencils and Lacey Act Compliance

What do pencils and guitars have in common? Aside from the obvious ties to creative expression, they have had a bit more in common as of late. In his most recent Timberlines blog post, WoodChuck discusses the recent seizure of Gibson’s raw materials and guitars, the impact the amendment to the Lacey Act that caused the seizures has had on the pencil industry and how the amendment relates to international trade and forest conservation.

Guitars, Pencils and Lacey Act Compliance

This photo is of my father back in the 1970s during a visit to Kitaboshi Pencil Company in Tokyo, Japan, where I actually visited today. He is being presented a guitar produced using California Incense-cedar by a member of the Sugitani family who are customers using our pencil slats for their products. This gentleman is now retired, but I happened to see him today, he says he still plays guitar every day and had that guitar specially commissioned for my father as a gift. Look for my upcoming post about the history of Kitaboshi Pencil and their products that we will begin selling onPencils.com next week. California Incense-cedar used in our pencil slats, our customers’ pencils using our slats (and in this one of a kind guitar) is fully compliant with the US Lacey Act which is the main subject of this post.

The recent news of the US Fish & Wildlife Service raid and seizure of Rosewood and Ebony wood raw materials as well as guitars from Gibson Guitars and subsequent claims by Gibson’s CEO that the US government is over reaching in its actions has an interesting relevance to challenges also faced by our company and our customers in the U.S. pencil industry…