Musical Instruments
Vancouver Province, Canada
August 20, 2006
Thieves are illegally chopping down highly prized maple trees -- some up to 400 years old -- in the Upper Fraser Valley forests.
Their plunder is destined for the highly lucrative musical-instrument industry, which uses the wood to make violins, cellos and guitars, often for the stars. Guitar makers pay up to $200 for a piece measuring as little as 17 by 55 centimetres.
Known as curly and quilted maple, the wood has a unique rippling and a blistered pattern valued by rock guitarists from Carlos Santana and Lenny Kravitz to Aerosmith bass player Tom Hamilton, who cough up big bucks for the instruments.
Depending on the quality of the curly or quilted pattern, one tree will yield anywhere from a few hundred dollars worth of wood to $50,000...
Michael Rytter, owner of Vedder Mountain Hardwoods in Chilliwack, is one of a handful of companies in B.C. that sells curly and quilted maple to musical instrument makers around the world.
"Woodturners die for this wood," says Rytter, whose clients include a New York "guitar maker to the stars." He usually harvests the wood himself and will only buy from another party if the wood has been legally obtained.
While maple trees are found everywhere, the sought-after curly or quilted pattern can only be found in a particular species called the Western broadleaf maple.
Even then, the curly pattern is found in only about one in 30 Western broadleaf maples and the quilted pattern in only one in 100.
Further compounding its rarity is the fact that the species grows only in coastal Oregon, coastal Washington and coastal southwestern B.C. -- and found only at elevations below 305 metres....
August 20, 2006
Thieves are illegally chopping down highly prized maple trees -- some up to 400 years old -- in the Upper Fraser Valley forests.
Their plunder is destined for the highly lucrative musical-instrument industry, which uses the wood to make violins, cellos and guitars, often for the stars. Guitar makers pay up to $200 for a piece measuring as little as 17 by 55 centimetres.
Known as curly and quilted maple, the wood has a unique rippling and a blistered pattern valued by rock guitarists from Carlos Santana and Lenny Kravitz to Aerosmith bass player Tom Hamilton, who cough up big bucks for the instruments.
Depending on the quality of the curly or quilted pattern, one tree will yield anywhere from a few hundred dollars worth of wood to $50,000...
Michael Rytter, owner of Vedder Mountain Hardwoods in Chilliwack, is one of a handful of companies in B.C. that sells curly and quilted maple to musical instrument makers around the world.
"Woodturners die for this wood," says Rytter, whose clients include a New York "guitar maker to the stars." He usually harvests the wood himself and will only buy from another party if the wood has been legally obtained.
While maple trees are found everywhere, the sought-after curly or quilted pattern can only be found in a particular species called the Western broadleaf maple.
Even then, the curly pattern is found in only about one in 30 Western broadleaf maples and the quilted pattern in only one in 100.
Further compounding its rarity is the fact that the species grows only in coastal Oregon, coastal Washington and coastal southwestern B.C. -- and found only at elevations below 305 metres....
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