Gearhead wrote
There is a catch with Mahogany though - it does not exist. It really is a group name of a dozen similar but different woods.
Sorry - wrong.
Mahogany is the family
Meliaceae and there are three common sub-species, which are all "true" or "genuine" mahoganies:
Swietenia macrophylla: This is the mahogany that grows throughout the Americas. The most common of the many common names for this species is Honduran mahogany, but it is also called in many cases by its country of origin, such as Nicaraguan, Mexican, Brazilian etc.
Swietenia mahogoni: This is the mahogany that grows in Florida, Cuba, and the Caribbean area in general. The most common name of this wood is Cuban mahogany.
Khaya spp.: The Khaya species sold as "African mahogany" ARE part of the mahogany family, but are separate from the Swietenia species of the Americas. The common subspecies are: Khaya ivorensis, Khaya anthotheca and Khaya nyasica
Confusing mahogany terms, "genuine" and "true"
The term "genuine mahogany" is used in two conflicting ways: first, and by far the most common usage, is to distinguishe Swietenia from Khaya, which to me is a reasonable distinction even if not quite accurate in its implication that Kyaya is not a genuine mahogany, but second, it is sometimes uses to specifically designate Swietenia macrophylla as this is the most desirable as a tonewood.
The term "true mahogany" is also used in two conflicting ways, with the first, and by far the most common, usage being the resonable distinction that a "true" mahogany is one that belongs to the mahogany family (this includes both Swietenia and Khaya species), but the second is to distinguish Swietenia (as "true") from Khaya, which to my mind is not helpful terminology in its implication that Khaya is not a true mahogany, but I don't get to make the rules, I just do my best to figure them out and report them. As with "genuine", the second, less helpful, usage is rare.
You can get some pretty cheap and shitty Mahogany.
And it's not usually mahogany. There are a number of woods that have mahogany in their common names but that have nothing to do with mahogany. A few of the more widely known are: Philippine mahogany, Santos mahogany and royal mahogany.
Companies like Taylor know this and tell you they use Sapele Mahogany. Sapele is available in SA as imported from South America and it would seem to be okay tonewood.
Sapele is a mahogany Entandrophragma cylindricum of the Family
Meliacea. It comes from Africa (West, central, and east), but is not part of the Khaya species commonly called African mahogany. It is a good tonewood (as all the mahoganies are) and has the advantage of often being extremely highly figured. But if you are going to say that African Mahogany is not a "true" mahogany, then Sapele is just as far removed from the Swietenia as African Mahogany is.
