I’ve been google searching and searching this site for update on traveling with an antique flute that has a small bit of ivory in the headjoint (the internal tuner in the headjoint of an antique Wylde flute). While it’s not likely anyone would ever see the ivory, the tuner for the headjoint cork is ivory and if you pull off the end cap, well, you’d see it.
What documentation do I need to be able to travel to the EU and Morocco later this spring? The flute is from approximately 1830, and the amount of ivory is de minimis, but I want to be safe and avoid some over eager border agent confiscating the old flute for no reason.
I would try to get a replacement made out of delrin. Something you can change back.
Getting a permit would probably take forever and then you’re calling attention to it at the airport; you are vulnerable to whimsies and passions of a local inspector who might find some discrepancy in the permitting. My feeling about flying is I do every possible thing to minimize the likelihood of hassle
I’ve thought about sending it to the Olwells who renovated the flute in 2000 to create a new headjoint stopper tuner, but the headjoint has a repaired crack (totally solid) and it makes me nervous to think about changing anything in the old flute.
Luckily, I have an 8 key delrin Copley, so I’ll likely just travel with that. It’s a great flute, too, but there is something special about that circa 1830s Wylde.