Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

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graham mcdonald
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Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by graham mcdonald » Sun Oct 30, 2011 12:56 pm

Many of you will have head about the dubious business practices of Alaska Tonewoods, run by the McCray family of Ketchikan, Alaska. There have been many postings on discussion forums and blogs about the non-arrival of paid-for wood and the abusive nature of frustrated correspondences with the company. I was interested to receive this email from a company who call themselves CelticMusicWood this morning:

"Graham.

As you see we can delivery small packages of tonewood at your sawed size boards or tops or billets in ones or hundreds of them. We have been at this wood products industry for over 60 years and my Great Grand Father started this saw mill and harvest company to help build the town and still here we are the 5th generation. Still working with in these same walls. We know wood from this Pacific Coast region of the Pacific NW in North America and 95% of our money for life comes from these species of wood that grows only right here. It is not a job to us. But a life style that we prefer. Kind of like being a Mormon or Amish with a little whiskey and loud women thrown in. The only thing we in the deep wood fear is a Grizzly on our track when we have no gun and very high winds that is blowing down these huge standing timbers around our ears right now. Thank you and we look forward to your inquiring. Robert of celticmusicwood@gci.net We Know Woo
d."

Included also was a 'Letter of Introduction' as follows:

"We as a family we have owned and operated this wood products business since 1901 where we started out in the logging business. In 1955 we sold our logging interests and became a wood products business specializing in Port Orford arrow shafts and guitar parts.

We still have the guitar and tonewood business and specialize in hand split billets of Sitka Spruce and Western Red Cedar. Which we sell for $1900 USD a cord or 128 cube feet. Or about $1.25 a board foot.

We sell all over the world and have for five generations of McCrays. “We Know Tonewood”. Please give us a call or write us celtictonewood@gci.net Thank you.

We specialize in 20 and 40 foot containers plus again we have opened up another saw mill and have sawed tops now for “12” years.
"

Of course the McCray name rang immediate alarm bells, and a google got me to the CelticMusicWood website which contains no information about where or who these people are. Google also suggest the domain was only registered in August this year. The email contained several pics of attractive chunks of spruce as well as a pic of this person, who might well be an actual McCray. And that is ignoring all the contradictions in the two documents themselves. I have had better from Nigeria

You have been warned 8)
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Graham McDonald
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kiwigeo
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by kiwigeo » Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:33 pm

Seems they don't want to make it easy for people to find out who they are:


Domain name: CELTICMUSICWOOD.COM

Registrant Contact:
DomainSecrecy.net
Private Registrant ()

Fax:
164 N. Gateway Drive
Providence, UT 84332
US

Administrative Contact:
DomainSecrecy.net
Private Registrant (1314389254@domainsecrecy.net)
+1.4357553433
Fax: +1.4357553449
164 N. Gateway Drive
Providence, UT 84332
US

Technical Contact:
DomainSecrecy.net
Private Registrant (1314389254@domainsecrecy.net)
+1.4357553433
Fax: +1.4357553449
164 N. Gateway Drive
Providence, UT 84332
US

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
ns1.midphase.com
ns2.midphase.com

Creation date: 24 Aug 2011 00:04:00
Expiration date: 23 Aug 2012 16:04:00
Martin

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kiwigeo
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by kiwigeo » Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:37 pm

Someone could always send them a nice email asking them who they are :mrgreen:
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Kim
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by Kim » Sun Oct 30, 2011 4:33 pm

Thanks for the heads up Graham,

This is important information for people to be aware of should they wish to avoid seeing what had looked like a good deal turn into an ordeal.

Cheers

Kim

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Allen
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by Allen » Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:11 pm

Thanks Graham. I posted a link to this thread on the Ukulele Underground.
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by kiwigeo » Mon Oct 31, 2011 5:32 am

Someone might want to put up a post on the OLF...cant do it myself as I'm no longer a member.
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graham mcdonald
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by graham mcdonald » Fri Nov 18, 2011 5:54 pm

I was interested to receive this email today with the Subject line Alaska Tonewood:
Very interesting review you wrote on jhon McCray I used to work for him u need to get ahold of me regaurding him, I have some info on him that I think u would love to listn, I cant stand him and I will be happy to answere any questions u have, btw that is me standing in that container with the spruce billits and that was almost 3 yrs ago and im pissed he used my photo and im the one bucking the big sitka tree in the slide as well, pls contact me. Rich

--
Rich Loring
I have no idea who this person is (other than who he claims to be) or why he thinks I should get in contact with him. I am happy to pass on his email address to anyone who may wish to pursue his stories about the unfortunate McCrays, but I thought I may not be the thing to do on a public forum.

cheers

graham
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by kiwigeo » Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:28 pm

Could be McCray's long lost twin brother....
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Re: Alaska Tonewoods, return by stealth?

Post by kiwigeo » Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:34 pm

If you're still undecided about dealing with McCray and co then check out this thread:

http://www.guitarsite.com/database/Make ... es/1.shtml
Martin

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