- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
- Messages
- 2,667
Hey guys. I have been seeing the posts about mislabeled/ confusing steel and wanted to bring up a maybe growing similar phenomena in my wheelhouse. The very common mislabeling of fine wood.
it comes in many flavors, the most basic is generic exaggerations. That includes listing everything as mastergrade/ 5A/ Exhibition grade, increasing the age of bog oak, overhyping the rarity of anything and so on. One of the most absurd flavors of this was around Feb 24 and the start of the invasion of Ukraine, many wood sellers who I know used to buy their bog oak from Russia or Belarus began relabeling their bog oak as being Ukrainian at about a 15% markup. Scummy, but not something I want to start internet fights over.
The one that concerns me the most is labeling woods as different species. As background, i can not 100% confirm my identifications of wood, especially not from photos but I have been doing this for over a decade, I know almost all the sellers most suppliers will be buying from, and I am highly confident in my ability to accurately identify even quite rare woods. Ill try to talk about some general trends ive seen, and what to be most careful of.
The biggest and clearest trend i see is that facebook is the worst. On facebook, sellers will set up their own sale pages where they are admins/ mods, and this is where the most intense relabeling/ lying goes on. The most common form is relabeling woods like golden acacia or other curly S.E asian or Aussie acacias as koa at about a ~45% markup. Most buyers have some difficulty properly finding the difference, in part due to the wide variation in koa's appearance. But this is one I see a lot, epically from one facebook seller who runs his own group. Hes gone even further, listing S.E acacia as Satinwood even.
I did actually get into something of an internet scuffle over a well known koa seller on Instagram relabeling acacias as Koa.
Ebay is better, but a lot of color shifting and brighting, and in my experience both of these sources have a lot of wet wood. Most makers dont ask after the moisture content of wood, and drying wood properly is slow and expensive. Its an important detail, your wood seller should have a digital moisture meter handy and be willing to give moisture values if requested. "Ive had it for years, its super old stock" is the "Yeah, the car was owned by a granny who just drove to church on sunday" of the wood world.
Another common mislabling is bloodwood burl. If anyone is selling bloodwood burl, its not the bloodwood you are thinking of. Bloodwood/ satene is in the snakewood family, the wood sold as bloodwood burl is Logwood.
It also includes simply misleading people about the rarity/ quality/ moisture content of wood. To a degree I do understand, selling stuff is marketing. I remember the feeling when I got my first shipments of Curly S.E asian acacia and it was hard to find buyers, realizing i could just label it as Koa and have it all sold in a week. Its not my style, but I do understand.
Theres also a lot of simplification that goes on, lots of species will be crushed down to the one best known. I stock about ~15 different arid zone acacias from Western Australia which are all unique in their own little ways. But often I need to make strong comparisons to ringed gidgee, the arid zone acacia most makers are experienced with. This is also a big part of why every wood thats reddish and hard gets called _______ Rosewood, I.E borneo rosewood, bolivian rosewood, Panama rosewood, Fiji rosewood. every dark dense wood is _________ ebony, I.E Brazilian ebony or ironwood.
Sorry to go on a long, unstructured rant about wood identifications. Be careful where you buy from. Good wood is hard to find, slick marketing is much easier.
Let me know if you have any questions about wood ID, scams youve seen or other stuff,
Ben Greenberg,
Greenberg Woods
it comes in many flavors, the most basic is generic exaggerations. That includes listing everything as mastergrade/ 5A/ Exhibition grade, increasing the age of bog oak, overhyping the rarity of anything and so on. One of the most absurd flavors of this was around Feb 24 and the start of the invasion of Ukraine, many wood sellers who I know used to buy their bog oak from Russia or Belarus began relabeling their bog oak as being Ukrainian at about a 15% markup. Scummy, but not something I want to start internet fights over.
The one that concerns me the most is labeling woods as different species. As background, i can not 100% confirm my identifications of wood, especially not from photos but I have been doing this for over a decade, I know almost all the sellers most suppliers will be buying from, and I am highly confident in my ability to accurately identify even quite rare woods. Ill try to talk about some general trends ive seen, and what to be most careful of.
The biggest and clearest trend i see is that facebook is the worst. On facebook, sellers will set up their own sale pages where they are admins/ mods, and this is where the most intense relabeling/ lying goes on. The most common form is relabeling woods like golden acacia or other curly S.E asian or Aussie acacias as koa at about a ~45% markup. Most buyers have some difficulty properly finding the difference, in part due to the wide variation in koa's appearance. But this is one I see a lot, epically from one facebook seller who runs his own group. Hes gone even further, listing S.E acacia as Satinwood even.
I did actually get into something of an internet scuffle over a well known koa seller on Instagram relabeling acacias as Koa.
Ebay is better, but a lot of color shifting and brighting, and in my experience both of these sources have a lot of wet wood. Most makers dont ask after the moisture content of wood, and drying wood properly is slow and expensive. Its an important detail, your wood seller should have a digital moisture meter handy and be willing to give moisture values if requested. "Ive had it for years, its super old stock" is the "Yeah, the car was owned by a granny who just drove to church on sunday" of the wood world.
Another common mislabling is bloodwood burl. If anyone is selling bloodwood burl, its not the bloodwood you are thinking of. Bloodwood/ satene is in the snakewood family, the wood sold as bloodwood burl is Logwood.
It also includes simply misleading people about the rarity/ quality/ moisture content of wood. To a degree I do understand, selling stuff is marketing. I remember the feeling when I got my first shipments of Curly S.E asian acacia and it was hard to find buyers, realizing i could just label it as Koa and have it all sold in a week. Its not my style, but I do understand.
Theres also a lot of simplification that goes on, lots of species will be crushed down to the one best known. I stock about ~15 different arid zone acacias from Western Australia which are all unique in their own little ways. But often I need to make strong comparisons to ringed gidgee, the arid zone acacia most makers are experienced with. This is also a big part of why every wood thats reddish and hard gets called _______ Rosewood, I.E borneo rosewood, bolivian rosewood, Panama rosewood, Fiji rosewood. every dark dense wood is _________ ebony, I.E Brazilian ebony or ironwood.
Sorry to go on a long, unstructured rant about wood identifications. Be careful where you buy from. Good wood is hard to find, slick marketing is much easier.
Let me know if you have any questions about wood ID, scams youve seen or other stuff,
Ben Greenberg,
Greenberg Woods
