Scott,
That is assuming the pallets/shipping crates ORIGINATED in the U.S. where those are commonly used woods, for that purpose. When Hyundai was building the new manufacturing complex in Montgomery, Alabama, a Deputy friend of mine was cruising the area, he saw some shipping crates that some sort of machines where shipped in, he noticed the wood and that it looked , as he said, "interesting". He asked if they were going to throw it out and if so could he have some of it, they told him he could have all he could get before they BURNED IT!!! Not knowing what it was, only that it was "interesting'', he grabbed as much as he could safely put in his Deputy car, he took it home and set it aside, ....and went to bed as he was working the 3rd shift, sorta forgot about it until a few days later, on Saturday his youngest son was looking through their wood pile for wood to build a coffee table for a Scout badge, he was already pretty good at woodworking, and found that wood, after a little research they found out that it was TEAK! I can't remember exactly what kind of Teak, it wasn't like any I'd seen before as this stuff was gorgeous! It wasn't straight grained at all and made a beautiful coffee table, even though it was made by a 12 year old!
Hyundai is a Korean company, I asked him why would they use Teak for shipping crates?!? He said he did go back and try to get more but they had burned it, he told them that they burned some beautiful Teak wood, and asked where they thought it came from, he was told that no one knew for sure, that there were multiple pieces of equipment there, coming from all over the world. Best guess was that it came from any piece of equipment in there that was built in a country that uses Teak wood like we use pine. Kind of a broad guess I said, and he agreed, he kept watching for more, but no luck..., unless he was holding out on me....
I know someone mentioned Luthier makers, which I did get some nice pieces of Claro Walnut
We get equipment from asia and europe at the office and I have some pieces of nice wood from that. had a crate of german material that was made with plywood from brazil. I have some small pieces of walnut from a local who does custom gun stocks, very nice stuff. I guess the lesson is there are more places to find wood than a catalog or home depot. they make hardwood ply here for the furniture factories, and you cannot buy any or any of the scrap.
scott
