Bedell Guitars is your source for Brazilian rosewood, now holding the world’s largest library of legal, documented Brazilian rosewood.
Company founder Tom Bedell takes wood seriously, and he is committed to conservation and to keeping the planet healthy and alive for generations to come. He has traveled to 15 countries in a relentless effort to ensure transparent, sustainable sourcing for all native and exotic tonewoods used in Bedell instruments.
Along with key Co-Hippies, he established the Tonewood Certification Project, which promises no clear-cut woods will be used in Bedell instruments and that any living trees will be “individually harvested in a manner that leaves the rest of the forest and ecological system as undisturbed as possible.”
Importantly, for Brazilian rosewood, the Project promises to use only ethically sourced Dalbergia nigra from a collection of “treasured tonewood,” fully compliant with all international regulations, and harvested before a specific 1992 ruling by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which was launched by a coalition of countries in the 1970s to protect fragile wild fauna and flora.
It has long been illegal to harvest Brazilian rosewood. Since CITES and the 2008 Lacey Act extension, it has also been, in many, if not most, cases, illegal to even transport such rosewood, leaving artists and hobbyists alike concerned about losing valuable instruments to customs officials at border crossings.
As part of Bedell’s Seed to Song program, each instrument is accompanied by a Guitar Portrait, which lists the woods used in each model and shows the exact specifications, thicknesses and frequencies of that wood, as determined by Sound Optimization.
In the case of Brazilian rosewood, to travel it is necessary to have a Guitar Passport issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As all of Bedell’s Brazilian is fully CITES compliant, with proper documentation meeting Lacey Act requirements, it’s simple to obtain one just by contacting the Bedell offices in Bend, Oregon.
