What to do with BRW?

[martintaylor]

OK, so, before you all get too excited, I am not planning on offering anything for sale. I just need a little advice.

I received a phone call yesterday from a lovely old lady who asked if I would be interested in meeting her husband who is 87 and used to make some guitars. Apparently she got my number from her son who had done some internet searching (thank you google). It turns out they live around the corner from where I live and have been there for almost 40 years.

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a chat etc.

On arriving, I was introduced to Sidney and Patricia (surname withheld). A lovely couple. Sidney started building guitars in England toward the end of WWII when he was 16. He had started his Cabinet Making apprenticeship 2 weeks before he turned 14. At 15 he was asked by a friend to help him repair a guitar. He heated up all the joints, pulled it completely apart, fixed it and reglued it all and that was the start of his life-long hobby.

Anyway, he has many fantastic stories (of which I listened to a few) and eventually asked me if I'd like to see a couple of his guitars. Of course I said yes. He then retrieved two old cases from a cupboard and brought out 2 amazingly beautiful classical guitars. Sitka tops, Brazilian Rose Wood back and sides, Honduran Mahogany necks. All hand built, and I mean HAND built. No sandpaper, no power tools. All hand cut timber all hand planed and scraped. The rosettes were incredibly intricate and hand made, the purfling and back strips too. And yes, BRW back and sides!

They were a little out of tune as they hadn't been played in a while, but when tuned up sounded incredible.

At this stage I was just blown away with the honour of meeting someone that had these wonderful, old traditional skills and still a passion for building. Unfortunately 2 strokes over the last 20 years had limited his ability to build and he was finally deciding to get rid of some old scraps rather than burning them and asked if I'd be interested in taking a look in his shed.

I must have just wiped the drool from my mouth when he looked up as I didn't need to answer for him to start shuffling downstairs.

Once in the shed he handed me an unfinished back that was clearly BRW. I think I might have let out an involuntary expletive. Anyway, he then says, please, have it, I'll never finish it.

He then drags out some more timber "scraps", half a dozen Ebony fingerboards (all had cut), offcuts of various types etc. I offer to buy whatever he has (of course). We negotiate a modest amount and then he says, oh, and you can have these too.

Yes, more BRW. Enough to make 3 Classicals and probably a small Lacote (Rob Dyball you know I am looking at you here).

So, the dilemma.

I now own these sets. Sid has had them for a long time, but are they legal? I questioned him and his story was that when he and his wife came to Australia he thought he might have trouble bringing his stash of exotic woods. So, they packed all their belongings in wooden crates. Wait for it..... yes, he made the crates out of BRW, Ebony, Boxwood etc. No-one questioned them about it. In fact they did get hassled about a small wooden fruit bowl that was inside one of the crates but the crates just looked like old timber.

He reckons he has owned most of it from the 50's onwards. But some might be from a little later than that but he has no paperwork for any of it.

Are there any issues I need to be aware of?

Thanks for any advice (oh, and by the way as I was leaving, he hands me a couple of hand made classical nuts, and yes, they are ivory.)


Martin

[RobDyball]

expletive indeed. Now I understand your text message from yesterday!

[peter.coombe]

No issues so long as they stay in Australia.

Peter

[martintaylor]

No issues so long as they stay in Australia.

Peter

Thanks Peter, that's reassuring

[Nick]

Can't help with any knowledgeable advice I'm afraid Martin but firstly congratulations on your 'score' and the wonderful story that came with it, I love talking to older people, they have some great stories and as you've pointed out, real skills that are unfortunately, in a lot of cases, dying with them. I marvel when they tell me "how we used to do it" and can't imagine what it was like when hand made meant just that, not a single machining process in sight. I also love how he got around his dilemma of bringing the timber into the country in the first place, cleverly place it in plain view. Border people were probably that interested in what the crates contained that they didn't even look twice at the crates themselves!

[Kamusur]

Stay exactly where you are Martin i can make it to your place in 20mins easy.

Steve

[charangohabsburg]

Congrats to your stash entry Martin.

What to do with BRW? What a question. Make a whatnot of course!

[Kamusur]

Congrats to your stash entry Martin.

What to do with BRW? What a question. Make a whatnot of course!

That's brilliant Markus

Steve

[J.F. Custom]

Nice score.

A lot of my old timber has come from retired cabinet makers and the like too. It's amazing what is lurking around some sheds in this country. One guy I met had been collecting some of his stash since he did his apprenticeship in his teens - and he was 70 odd when I met him!

Anyway, as Peter said, within Australia is no issue. But I have heard you can try to obtain legal paperwork via Stat. Decs. etc, when official receipts are not available. I found that out when checking into it for much the same reasons as you Martin. That said, I never bothered following up to see how difficult a task it proved to be. If you do follow up on this, I'd be interested to see how you go.

Nowadays I avoid the potential headaches and focus on alternative, non-threatened timbers when sourcing new materials. I limit my acquisition of exotics to finds such as you have discovered, which are clearly few and far between and therefore for me, a precious and limited resource.

Jeremy.

[martintaylor]

And for those of you following on... This guitar is made from the timber (BRW) that I was given by Sidney Gibbs. He is 87 yrs old and built his first guitar when he was 16 during WWII in East London whilst being bombed by Hitler. He now lives on the Central Coast and this BRW was brought with him to Australia when he emigrated 40+ years ago. I had the honour of taking the guitar to show him the other day and, although incapacitated after several strokes in recent years, he was still able to appreciate the finished result. I'm so glad to have met him and he wife Pat.

[kiwigeo]

Nice work Martin....best use for that BRW IMHO.

[demonx]

That's a pretty decent thing for you to do, and the guitar looks great also!

I'm sure he was very appreciative.

[RobDyball]

I had a play on this beauty before Martin had it finished, it's a lovely instrument. You certainly did honour to the old fella Martin.
Interested to listen to it now!