Selmer 503 on display through January 14?

a

looks like a shim under the bridge. i thought django's guitar was burned after he died. also, in reference to his name on the headstock, didn't he have the pick of selmers from the shop, or was this guitar specially made for him?

RKatz

I would rather have the Mona Lisa.

Domengro

Hi Bob,

The exhibit you're asking about is only happening in Paris, it is not virtual although they've incorporated multimedia displays to spice it up and it does seem that they've taken Django's Selmer out of the cupboard and into the public halls (along with dozens of other guitars & similiar instruments they seem to own as well as others from collectors on loan). I doubt you'd be able to pick it up and run through some tunes but close up camera work would seem feasible (if you're in Paris).

At Oz Manouche (Australia's first GJ Fest) Ian Date told us a captivating story passed on by a Dutch luthier who bluffed his way in and was granted the right to measure & photgraph the Selmer in question. Whilst waiting in the downstairs lobby he heard a "thump,..thump.." and when turning around to find out what the noise was, discovered that it was the Museum assistant dragging Django's last guitar down the stairs behind him and the thump was the Selmer bouncing from step to step..

Fact or fiction? Great story told by a great performer..

Cheers

Dom

guit_box

It's the lower transverse brace that is missing on Django's guitar. I've heard conflicting _ideas_ of why that brace is missing
1. Django preferred the sound of the D-hole which didn't have that brace, so they made the guitar custom without it.
2. The petite bouche was in transition from the grande and some of them didn't have the brace, but they eventually had to add the brace for structural reasons.

Keep in mind that because of the longer scale length and 14th fret neck/body join on the petite, the bridge was moved closer to the neck, which also decreased the bass response. On the grande bouche, the bridge is centered in the lower bout, and so the two center transverse braces are moved closer to the tail block and there isn't the large gap requiring an additional brace. Removing the lower brace would definitely increase the bass response.

scot

503 wasn't a transitional model. There are a handful of 12-fret petite bouche guitars around - these were the transitional guitars. There is one of these in the states (probably once owned by Sarrane Ferret), I've played it and it's a great sounding guitar. Did Django prefer the d-hole? Probably not, because when the petite bouche became available he never used the d-hole again. I doubt if we'll ever know exactly why that brace is missing, but using Occam's Razor (and the corollary Law of Unintended Consequences), the most likely explanation is that the person who glued up the top forgot to put that brace on.

Django's guitar was not burned when he died. There was an official Selmer "Django Reinhardt" model with his name on the peghead - 503 was one of these.

10 or 12 years ago I was told by a guy in France that when the Selmer workshop completed a run of guitars, they'd send a taxi to Paris to find Django and bring him to the plant where he could try them all and take his pick. It's a good story and makes sense, so maybe it's true that nearly every Selmer was at least played by Django.

There are also a number of prewar jazz recordings where Django almost certainly did not use a Selmer. On these recordings, Django's sound is basically the same - I think he was one of those rare players (like Joseph Spence or Blind Blake) who sound basically the same no matter what guitar they play.

Phil

Those photos of the 503 look exactly like my Gallato!

guit_box

The biggest difference in sound between these two models is not the soundhole, I was just using the soundhole as the identifier as most people do. The biggest difference is the fact that on a 14 fret model the bridge and bracing is pushed towards the neck, and no longer centered in the lower bout as Maccaferri probably intended. I read somewhere that Django preferred the 14 fret model for the access, so the choice may have had nothing to do with sound. One thing is for sure from a construction standpoint (which is what the original question alluded to) removing that lower brace will increase the bass response, whether or not by a quantifiable amount is debatable.

scot

I think you are 100% right - removing that lower brace improves bass response. Favino guitars don't have it and they are generally bassier than guitars built on the traditional Selmer design. I agree with you that the change in scale length (increased string tension) and relocation of the the bridge and associated braces have more to do with the change in sound than the soundhole shape does. But the soundhole matters too, as is evident on a 14-fret d-hole. Everything matters.

My point here is that there is probably no special magic to this guitar. If you listen to the recordings, it's about impossible to tell when DR changed from one guitar to another - you can't even tell when he changed from the d-hole to the oval. There are recordings where he was playing a guitar very different from a Selmer but you can't tell from the sound. 503 is surely an exceptional Selmer or he wouldn't have kept it exclusively for so long. But that might not mean much to anyone else. Earlier this year I had the chance to try out the LP goldtop that Duane Allman played on "Layla". In my hands it was just an old LP - no magic at all.

Has anyone played a Charles Fox "Ergo" guitar? They have a low-mass composite wood/carbon/wood top formed into a dome - no braces at all in the lower bout, and the neck is set for an exaggerated break angle on the strings. It's also got the compound radius cutaway that most Selmer style guitars have. It's said to have many of the good characteristics of a Selmer type guitar - really somthing special. How about it, Bob? He's in Portland - maybe you've tried one?

Elliot

Scot, you cannot compare one guitar with another guitar with a wider bout and then say the increased bass response is due to the bracing!

Ken Bloom

Increased bass response happens when the vibrating plate is looser. Put in another brace and plate becomes much stiffer, thus less bass response. Yes, if the plate has more area (wider bout) this will be a contributing factor but not to the degree that adding that fifth brace will. It's matter of degree and balancing all the various factors, but I have to agree with Scott here. Not having the fifth brace will have a much larger effect on the overall sound as opposed to amount of increase in top area when the lower bout is another half inch or so wider. Just my 2p.