Is my guitar a real maccaferri?

glitcha100 · December 2010

Hello everyone!
well, my uncle gave me this guitar a couple of years ago and he reckons its pretty old, as hes had it for around 15 years. He told me that it might be a maccaferri but i have no idea what kind, when it was made and how much its worth... the pics that i will send you shows the guitar with no strings because the photos where taken when i was restringing it. Its in pretty good condition but if its quite old then its in great condition, only a couple of scratches, (mainly on the neck and front of the body) i hope you can help me find out this information about this guitar.

Thanks!

Daniel.

here are the pictures:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=213lruv&s=7
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=33bmko0&s=7
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2wptssz&s=7

Michael Bauer · December 2010

No, it is surely not a Selmer nor a Maccaferri. The rosette is not Selmer, neither is the tailpiece. A Selmer would have the Selmer logo branded into the headstock. And all Macs were d-holes. The oval hole design came about after Maccaferri left the company. I can't see enough of the rest of the guitar to say more.

There are others here who might recognise what kind of guitar it is. Frater, for example, has an amazing eye for guitars. But I can tell you that your guitar isn't a Selmer.

crookedpinky · December 2010

The fret markers are wrong too - at 5,7 ,9 and 12 when it should be 5.7.10 and 12. It would be useful to see the headstock close up front and back and especially the area behind the nut/zero fret.

Alan

Ken Bloom · December 2010

The extended fingerboard is another anomoly. D-holes yes, oval holes -no.

Ken Bloom

glitcha100 · December 2010

ok, well thank you for telling me this. also, do you know if it will be worth anything? its a pretty old guitar.

thanks

daniel.

glitcha100 · December 2010

also,

to Ken Bloom

doesnt Django Reinhardt have an extended fretboard on his oval guitar? it shows this in a video on youtube. do you think my guitar is custom made perhaps? i've been trying to find info on it for a couple of months now and havent been able to find much...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iJ7bs4mTUY

sorry for asking so many questions... im 14 and im curious of what kind of guitar this is, also i'd like to ask what kind of strings i should be using for this guitar. i have been using Nylon strings but ive heard that some models are meant for steal strings.

thanks!

Shawn · December 2010

Interesting guitar you have there. Definitely not a Selmer as others have suggested, but quite an anomaly nonetheless. I'm going to venture into an opinion of my own and suggest you have a guitar that has both been refinished and made with different parts. The body shape is reminicent of something akin to an Aria, Ozark, Woodland, or another of the budget SelMacs. If this is true I would venture to guess that the fingerboard has been replaced at one time or another as the oval holes typically don't come with fingerboard extensions. It also looks to have been refinished, as well as having an older Aria/Saga bridge added. The thing that really baffles me though is the grain pattern in the top...it actually looks like a quality soundboard, and not something I'd expect to see in a budget guitar. All in all, I'm not sure what you have, but I'd make the supposition that the guitar itself is not as old as you may think.

Ken Bloom...On another note. There were a few of the transitional model Oval Hole Selmers that actually did have the fingerboard extensions, most notably, the one played by Django in the famous "J'attendrai" video. The exception with this being that the extension did not overlap the rosette in the original Selmers, as is different to the guitar in this thread.

PS- If you could take a few more pictures of the headstock and the back of the neck, it might help significantly in identifying this guitar. For me, headstock design goes a long way in placing an identity on one of these guitars, and I think it would be quite beneficial with your's as well.