New Selmer branded guitars incoming..?

Buco · April 18

@wim if this is totally your brainchild, you're a genius. So brilliant.

paulmcevoy75 · April 18

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120926#Comment_120926

Yeah that's pretty great.

paulmcevoy75 · April 18

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120903#Comment_120903

Did Angelo mean there's no one like Selmer because they've only made 10 guitars in the last 70 years?

Tbh I feel like this is probably a good thing for everyone, like Joscho on Rick Beato. There seems to be a bit of wanting interest in the whole thing as far as I can tell.

There are some amazing "factory" instruments in the world, Collings maybe being the best example of a company that turns out insane quality consistently. But it's hard to pull off. Starting from nothing even if you're hiring someone isn't easy. If they just have someone else make the guitars for them...then it's really that person's guitars.

It will be interesting to see. I hope they are stupidly expensive. I just don't get the feeling like the market is super huge right now for a company to blow a huge amount of money tooling up for this. Maybe they are just taking over someone else's thing.

There's a weird luthier's equation though. The more instruments any maker or company makes, the less time whoever the master is has on any particular one. Companies like Bourgeois have one guy on each operation...one guy does binding only, one guy necks, etc. But that's a company that's evolved over 40 years. The quality is high but it's a slow evolution.

scot · April 19

Gibson has made high quality reissues of famous models that had been discontinued for decades, like the Nick Lucas, Advanced Jumbo, J-185, Roy Smeck, etc. The originals of these guitar are among the most desirable old flat tops by any maker, and typically they are everything the legends say they are - great guitars in every way. Not unlike Selmers... The reproductions - time will tell but I don't think so. I owned a '56 J-185 for over 30 years and the modern reproductions just don't seem anything like that guitar. I've played pre-war 000-28 Martins that sounded so good and played so easy it was hard to imagine a better guitar. A modern 000-28 Martin is a nice guitar but nothing like those old ones. I don't know if if it was a better grade of wood, better lacquer or what. It's certainly a mystery that luthiers have been trying to decipher for a long time.

A factory doesn't actually seem to be a bad place to build guitars. A lot of exceptional guitars came out of those factories in Nazareth and Kalamazoo.

Also worth noting - Django never played a vintage guitar, always a new or fairly new one. For what that's worth...

What's the general opinion? Who makes the guitar today that sounds most like an old Selmer?

paulmcevoy75 · April 19

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120958#Comment_120958

I don't think you can compare Martin and Selmer. In the 1950s when Selmer stopped production, Martin was making 5000 guitars a year, which is probably 5x more Selmers than were made in the entire run. And Martin had been making guitars for 99 years prior to Selmer starting.

Gibson was less dramatic but also similar. Point being that Selmer was just getting started when they stopped. That's sort of why I'm not super interested in making exact copies of old Selmers. I think they are super cool instruments and unique in that sort of space between archtops and flat tops but it seems like there's a lot of space for experimentation.

My understanding is that the Selmers that exist are varied in tone and quality so it's hard to figure out what exactly a copy would sound like.

Just my opinion. People are going to get off on the name, which is cool but ultimately it will be interesting what their goal is.

I was thinking the other day, if I was the boss, I would have a great luthier source all the wood, measure the tops and then send everything to the highest end factory in China they can find to assemble them. Then bring them back to France for final assembly, tuning and setup. The quality of workmanship in China, for factory instruments, can be extremely high and probably is a lot faster than trying to find people to man a factory in France or here. And you could maximize the input of the master luthier in the things that are ultimately the most important, understanding the wood and bracing and the setup.

no one asked me though....

littlemark · April 19

Copy the 503 obviously.

Scoredog · April 19

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/120965#Comment_120965

I’d agree with this, they vary so much. I have 823 and T D has 824 and they are quite different though some of that is setup and they have lived different lives. 823 was owned by Challain Ferre and he was a lefty and flipped the guitar so it has 2 worn areas from picking as an example.