Selmer 504 owned by Stochelo Rosenberg is for Sale!!

Archtop Eddy

Bohemian wrote:

it appears to be a cheaply made production guitar with a mismatched top.

Well it's not a Holo that's for sure -- or it'd been SOLD in a micro-second. AE

Craig Bumgarner

wim wrote:

the selmers were a cheaply made factory guitar the rest is cultism ...

True to some degree, though most Selmers appear to have been much better made than many of the French copies that followed. By comparison to the local competition, Selmer was high end. Many of the French and Italian builders of the mid 20th century were the "Asian" builders of their day. Cheap guitars without labels built in small sweat shops for European music stores to sell to the masses. Luthiers of old, by and large, were not revered as they are now. A few, who built truly fine guitars, rose to prominence, like Jacques Favino, but many are now relegated to obscurity and though their guitars pop up now and then, we can only wonder who they were and how they worked.

Bob Holo

Someone told me Stochelo was selling his other Selmer... too bad, but he has kids & a mortgage.

Haha.. just refreshed the page and saw Craig's comment. It's true that Selmers really weren't cheaply made factory guitars. Some of the ones done around the bad times in the war were made of woods that weren't optimal, but that's forgivable because of the logistics and shortage nightmares France lived through at that time. But even then, you can tell that the wood used was carefully chosen and defects were put in places where they wouldn't harm the sound & structure. Studying Selmers has made me really respect what they were doing and their level of craft which was above what most smaller shops were doing at that time. I've been inside a lot of G.J. guitars from the 30's-50's and really... the Selmers were the most cleanly and artfully built. Even if there were several guys working in a shop - they clearly knew what they were doing and they were doing it well. They might have been employees, but they were thinking like builders. I've seen some poorly repaired Selmers, but I've never seen a poorly built Selmer. Sure, they did some under-braced guitars during the transition period that didn't fare well over the decades, but just judging from the quality of the work - I'd say the Selmer shop was a whole lot more like Dana Bourgeois' shop - or Froggy Bottom or something of that ilk.

frater

I'm not sure it is safe to assume the "French and Italian builders of the mid 20th century were the "Asian" builders of their day". Italians particularly had created a design that didn't exist before Maccaferri, so they were doing their own dance at least!

crescendo

Resurrecting an important thread!

Was reading francois charle's book on the history of Selmer tonight. And started thinking about #504. Perhaps the second most meaningful gypsy guitar in existence.

Does anyone on the forum know who the current owner is?

Would love to figure out where that instrument is living. Thanks!

MichaelHorowitz

A DjangoBooks customer has owned 504 for a number of years. He was considering selling it but last I heard, it's back with Stochelo. Although I haven't confirmed that.

MichaelHorowitz

OK, scratch that....turns out my customer still has 504 so that info was incorrect.

He said it sounds amazing! I hope to play it someday....

ChrisMartin

Didn't Stochelo say somewhere (an interview or maybe on a website or a video
?) that he had given in to family pressure and bought a house. It lasted six months, they didn't like it and then moved back to the old Gypsy camp, but he was annoyed because he had sold his Selmers to pay for it. Where did I hear that, anyone know?

crescendo

Stochelo repeats a similar story here:

ChrisMartin

Yeah, thanks for posting that. I knew I had heard him tell the story, couldn't remember where. Interesting interview anyway, but for anyone interested he tells about building the house at 16.00 onward.