2012 Holo Selmer

Bob has made a name for himself over the last few years as an aficionado of the Franco-Italian guitar designs of Selmer, Maccaferri, Busato, Favino, etc. He spent years studying vintage Selmer style guitars including nearly every Selmer, Favino, and Busato that has come through our shop. He has taken on the challenge of making new guitars that have the elusive and ineffable qualities heard in the very best vintage Selmer type guitars. Few will doubt he has been incredibly successful in his quest, as his guitars are now in the hands of many of today's leading players: Adrien Moignard, Rocky Gresset, Stephane Wrembel, Mathieu Chatelain, Neil Andersson, Antoine Boyer, Alfonso Ponticelli, etc. Bob has essentially been a "luthier for the stars" these past few years...but now you can take home one of these gems yourself!

This is Bob's Selmer style guitar. The body is standard Selmer size (15 3/4") and the scale is 670mm. This guitar is impossibly light at 3.7lbs! Most Duponts are around 4lbs, Dell Artes around 4.5 lbs.

The top is spruce, back and sides are Indian rosewood, and the neck is highly figured walnut with a Busato style rosewood spline. There is no truss rod, but the neck is reinforced with carbon strips which will keep it eternally straight. The fingerboard is made of rosewood. The interior is laquered in the tradition of the original Selmers.

The Rosewood bridge is a new compensated design....looks really cool and does a great job intonating the guitar.

This is Bob's pure Selmer design and the sound is clearly the traditional type of tone you'd expect from a vintage Selmer. It has a very clear, present high end that allows your leads to "sing" nicely without much effort. The rounded highend is supported with relatively complex and interesting sounding mids that add character and color to anything you play. The bass is full, but very nicely controlled and just strong enough to produce full soundings chords. The thing I love the most about this guitar is the prodigious lower mid range which gives the guitar an awesome sounding growl when playing chords or single notes on the lower strings. That quality alone makes it standout from other Selmer copies which sound "flat" by comparison.

In addition to these qualities, it's worth mentioning that, like all of Bob's guitars, this instrument projects very well and you will no doubt have little trouble playing it in volume challenged situations. It also one of the driest guitars I've ever had from Bob. Very clear and direct, with just enough overtone content to color the tone. That's a very tough tonal quality to control and Bob has pulled it of beautifully.

This instrument plays very smoothly, with low 2.8mm action and 10 gauge Argentine strings. It's very rare that one can string a Gypsy guitar with 10s when the action is this low. The fact this guitar can be strung with light gauge strings and not buzz profusely is a testament to Bob's precise neck geometry and meticulous fretwork.

If you're looking for a traditional sounding guitar, with a tone that's akin to 1940s Django, but with the ultra-smooth playability you'd expect of a modern instrument, then this one should suite you quite well.

This is the CASH price...add 3% (4% for International orders) if you'd like to pay with a credit card.