Import/travel EU

General
#1

Interested to hear what is involved customs wise when importing shamisen to your country in EU or traveling in/out with it. I would guess the regulations are harmonized even if enforcement has national variation.

I just took a brief look and what I gather would suggest:
-You might need documents to prove the leather and wood does not come from endangered species
-Import and trade of endangered species might be possible under restricted conditions (eg. elephant was born in captivity/killed legally, trees grown on a farm, etc)
-CITES is apparently the central regulation/treaty framework

#2

Going out of EU required nothing. Coming back into EU they wanted to check the dou in my backpack but did not care about asking for details. Obviously it might be different the next time.

#3

I can add that I travelled through Helsinki.

#4

Doing some research WRT low-end shamisen, I took a glance at CITES search engine & some documents and what I gather… supposing I understood all correctly:

-Cat is not regulated (makes sense, not an endangered species)
-Dog is not regulated in the domesticated version, the natural one (wolf) is regulated for populations in some countries (think it was just a few nations around Mid-East, eg. Turkey). Customs probably wouldn’t think you have wolf hide on the instrument esp if not travelling from a select few countries…
-Ebony is protected for the Madagaskar population. So at most you’d need to prove the ebony itomaki are not from the same species, or provide a formal document that the wood doesn’t come from this protected population. Though I guess they might not bother for just a couple itomaki for personal use.

You could always verify the above by a 5-10 min phone call to your country’s customs. Ask for the proper import code while you’re doing it, probably they are FAR more interested in you getting the exact correct code (there’s several just for stringed instruments around here, possibly with a very minor difference in customs fees).

#5

Ah when I bought mine I paid customs fee. Actually, that and taxes were actually about 40% of the total price so it was pretty expensive. Obviously if I bring my shamisen with me for a trip like I did I’m not paying anything and if they were to start talking about it it’s already in the system that I paid my customs fee.

I’m pretty sure no one would ever make a test on your ebony. Tons of guitars have ebony fretboards and I’ve never heard of any guitar being tested for such things.

Basically, customs don’t know much and are more interested in finding drugs etc.

© 2020 Kyle Abbott