Quote:

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.



I guess I should be glad I sold all of my vintage instruments.

Anyone wanna defend the Feds after reading this story?



Sorry, I'm not buying Mr. Viellard's problem here. Years ago I had a company that exported cars from Canada to the US. We were dealing with Customs, the EPA, DOT and various State DMV's for titling. We researched the legalities and hired a Customs Broker. Brokers are licensed and bonded and if anything like this goes wrong, they're on the hook unless they can prove their client lied to them and went off on their own.

Six years ago I decided to buy and rebuild a 5'8" Kanabe grand piano. I knew absolutely squat about it but after several months researching it on the internet, I completely disassembled it including destringing, removed the plate, refinished the plate myself, disassembled, repaired and rebuilt the lyre, removed the legs, refinished the soundboard, did the whole thing except for the keyboard action. That I sent out to a tech after I replaced the felts. Then I stained and refinished it in natural mahogany using shellac and French polishing. I learned all this with no woodworking or piano rebuilding background using the internet. I even formed a paper company so I could buy all the proper parts from a couple of piano supply houses who won't sell to the general public. During the course of this I became aware of the ivory problem concerning old piano keys, how you can and can't import them, all that stuff. I simply clicked on a few links and read all about it. I also met some very cool piano rebuilders in the LA area and they knew all about importing old pianos too. If an amateur like me found out about it then a pro like Viellard surely must have known and if he didn't use a customs broker to handle several tens of thousands of antique European pianos then he's a total idiot and I have no sympathy for him. If he did use a Customs broker then this quote is not telling the whole story. He may have been fined and put on probation but he also would have had a nice lawsuit against his broker.

Whether or not all these laws are proper or not or whether there's too much government in our lives and I completely agree there is, is besides the point here. Citizens of this country have had to navigate a byzantine bunch of government agencies and their idiot functionaries for a hundred years complaining all the way. Smart businessmen learn to deal with it, idiots get screwed. That's the way it is. We'll learn where Gibson fits into all this soon enough.

Also, being worried about the Feds coming to your door is not what this is part of the discussion is about. It's about taking an old instrument across an international border. That's when you need all the documentation, not just having it sitting in your house. I'm not defending that situation, it sounds pretty stupid to me but if that's what's happening then everybody just needs to learn to deal with it and hope we can change things after the next election.

Bob

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