Were Selmers really that good?

scot

A Selmer is as much a cultural icon as it is a guitar, and you have to pay for icons. I think that $20k is actually a very reasonable price for one. You simply can't say "Is it worth that much?" - is a vintage Ferrari really worth over a million? Could a postage stamp be worth thousands of dollars? Yes - if you have the dough and simply must have the item.

To return to Michael's original question, Gypsy musicians did not exactly abandon the use of the Selmer at some period of time. There was a period in the 50s and 60s where there were few or no gypsies outside Paris who were playing any kind of jazz, especially django-style jazz. There was no reason for them to play it - no one was interested in it, thus no money to be made. Most of the gypsies and other guitarists in Paris who were playing jazz back then used the appropriate instruments of the day - like Gibson ES-175s or Jacobacci copies. No one was playing djangocentric music back then. Guitarists were more interested in doing their own thing and if Django played a Selmer - so what?

The Selmer guitar was still popular, though. All the older generation guitarists in Paris that I talked to told me stories about this guitar or that guitar - where they got them and what happened to them. Some guitarists wanted Selmers - that's for certain. They weren't expensive then, either. Remember - in the 60s, you could buy old Strats and old Martins here in the USA for half the price of a new one. Not everyone wanted them, but some people did. I'm sure it was the same with Selmers. Remember, the 50s and 60s were about NEW.

A Selmer today is a vintage guitar. Django never played a vintage guitar - the oldest guitar he ever used couldn't have been more than 10-12 years old. I think he liked the sound of a new guitar. Today, what people typically want in a Selmer style guitar is punch - a characteristic more associated with new guitars. A high quality guitar's tone mellows and gains a certain richness over time, which usually comes at the expense of punch. That's my experience, anyway. This is the opposite of what the majority of guitarists in this style generally prefer today. Most people play near the bridge and want the snappy tone you get there. You don't need a 60 year old guitar if that's the tone you're looking for. I think that many guitarists back in the 50s and 60s were looking for the same kind of thing - they wanted the sound that a new guitar gives, so they bought new Favinos which were pretty nice guitars too.

Of course, it's also true that when we talk about the changes and improvements in tone and sound that happen to a guitar over time, the fundamental characteristics of the guitar don't change. A guitar that sounds great when it's 30 years old almost always sounded great when it was new, too. I'll bet that those Selmers that Fapy and Stochelo use sounded great the day they left the factory.