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A colleague of mine ordered a Steinway grand piano from Hamburg with an ivory keyboard (legally made in Germany). He went through a long process of trying to ge
by theOnliest 11y ago
A colleague of mine ordered a Steinway grand piano from Hamburg with an ivory keyboard (legally made in Germany). He went through a long process of trying to get it into the US (including a few phone calls to the Secretary of the Interior), but there's an absolute ban on importing ivory to the US. In the end, he had to get a plastic keyboard made for the piano before it could be shipped here; the original ivory keyboard is in a closet in his mother's house in Berlin.
- jbrackett 11y ago"...but there's an absolute ban on importing ivory to the US." This is not true even for African Elephant ivory, at least not yet. [1] There is also legal ivory trade in Mammoth and other animals such as wart hog that can easily be found at gem shows, knife and gun shows, etc. I talked to a guy from the Ukraine at a knife show who was selling Mammoth tusks recovered from Russia and apparently had quite a time at the airport but he was able to bring in his supplies for sale. [1] http://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-questions-and-answers.html http://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-...
- theOnliest 11y agoFair enough. (I hadn't actually looked up the statutes; I just believed him based on all of the hoops he jumped through to try to do it.) There does appear to be a ban on commercial imports; even though the ivory in question was legally sourced and sold in Germany, he can't get it into the US. (Though this was probably 15 years ago...it looks like the law might have changed and he could get his keyboard now!)