9202 10 90 — String musical instruments played with a bow (excl. violins)

9202 Other string musical instruments (e.g. guitars, violins, harps): 9202 10 – bow 9202 90 – other

This heading covers: (A) String instruments played with a bow. The main examples of such instruments are violins, viols and violas (the latter slightly larger than ordinary violins), cellos, bass viols and double basses. (B) Other string musical instruments. This category includes: (1) Plucked string instruments, in which the sound vibrations are produced by momentarily displacing the string from its position of rest either with the fingers or with a small pointed plate (plectrum) of wood, ivory, tortoise-shell, plastics, etc. Examples are: (a) mandolins (Neapolitan mandolins with a strongly arched back, flat mandolins, mandolas, etc.); (b) guitars; (c) German lutes (a kind of mandolin); (d) banjos (instruments with a long neck, having a round body with a flat back and a flat soundboard formed by drum parchment); (e) Hawaiian guitars (small guitars with a thick neck); (f) zithers. These have a flat sound-box of approximately trapezoidal shape and a large number of strings, usually of metal; (g) balalaikas; (h) harps. These are string instruments played by plucking; they have a triangular frame and strings of graduated length. (2) Other instruments, such as: (a) aeolian harps. Used in gardens, etc. They consist of a large number of strings on a sound-box; when placed in a current of wind, they give out natural sounds; (b) dulcimers. These have a frame on which steel strings are mounted. They are played by striking with soft-headed hammers and are used in gypsy bands. In certain instruments, particularly guitars, the sound may be amplified by electronic means, which does not exclude them from this heading; however, electronic instruments such as guitars without sound-boxes fall in heading 9207 (see the General Explanatory Note to this Chapter).

Notes

English text as published in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2021/1832 (Combined Nomenclature). The EAEU tariff and the EU nomenclature copy these notes from the same convention. For a Russian declaration the binding version is the Russian one: Annex to Decision No 80 of the EEC Council of 14 September 2021.

1. This chapter does not cover:

(a) parts of general use, as defined in note 2 to Section XV, of base metal (Section XV), or similar goods of plastics (Chapter 39);

(b) microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, headphones, switches, stroboscopes and other accessory instruments, apparatus or equipment of Chapter 85 or 90, for use with but not incorporated in or housed in the same cabinet as instruments of this chapter;

(c) toy instruments and apparatus (heading 9503);

(d) brushes for cleaning musical instruments (heading 9603), or monopods, bipods, tripods and similar articles (heading 9620); or

(e) collectors' pieces or antiques (heading 9705 or 9706).

2. Bows and sticks and similar devices used in playing the musical instruments of headings 9202 or 9206 presented with such instruments in numbers normal thereto and clearly intended for use therewith, are to be classified in the same heading as the relative instruments. Cards, discs and rolls of heading 9209 presented with an instrument are to be treated as separate articles and not as forming a part of such instrument.