A Cautionary Tale if Your Pipes Have Ivory

[OC Richard]

Apparently it's worse for us pipers than we had thought

http://www.thebagpipeplace.com/Ivory_Law.html

Here's the actual US Government site

http://www.fws.gov/international/tra...d-answers.html

It's not just travelling with ivory; here in the USA it is now illegal to possess ivory that doesn't have proper documentation.

To qualify for the certificate you have to be able to establish that the ivory was "legally acquired and removed from the wild" prior to 1976 AND that you yourself acquired them before February 2014.

Pipers with ivory-mounted pipes can't sell these instruments, and carrying them in a public place subjects them to possible seizure, unless they have certificates. Us pipers with vintage pipes are either scrambling to get certificates, or (if we have pipes that can't be certified) sending our lovely vintage pipes off to local makers to have the ivory stripped off and replaced with anything else.

Don't put it past government agents to show up at a Highland Games and start snapping up pipes. It happened here, a few years ago, when an agent at a local Highland Games seized one vendor's entire van-full of sealskin sporrans.