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Fake Selmer on eBay ... again

Gandalfe

Striving to play the changes in a melodic way.
Staff member
Administrator
This fake (or copy they call it) Selmer sax is for sale for under $1000, 5 available at this time. I can't believe how brazen these sellers have become. Buyer beware indeed.

FakeSelmer.JPG

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Exact-C...824090?hash=item2362770ada:g:vcYAAOSwL7VWtmLK
 
"New Exact Copy"
but still duplicates the protected emblem exactly.

That's the thing I don't like about working in China you have to sign over your patents for them to use.
When I was in automotive and we were charged with starting a manufacturing plant in China we had to find a "partner" (as we were not allowed to do anything ourselves) then we also had to open all patents for their use in China. Of course, that allows them to sell things out the back door and to other people as they see fit.

I hope things have changed since then but even this ad stating "an exact copy" but still using the emblem.
And I don't think Selmer Paris makes anything in China ... which is a true travesty in international patent law.

add to it .. the kicker at the end
" Our price is only $995. FREE SHIPPING! This model sells for $4500-$6500,"

and specifics
"
[h=2]Item specifics[/h]
Condition:New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging (where packaging is ... Read more
Type:Alto
Skill Level:ProfessionalBrand:[h=2]Selmer[/h]
Country/Region of Manufacture:ChinaMPN:[h=2]802[/h]





 
FYI, the 2nd photo shows that it was from Alibaba, China. I couldn't find that particular one on Alibaba but I did find a [h=1]Selmer (Paris) Professional Tenor Saxophone 64Ng [Non-Engraved][/h]
I actually would love to have someone give one of these to me so I could inspect it and compare it both mechanically and playability-wise.

I wonder what happens down the road when the original owner goes to sell it online, and doesn't specific anything specific about it's true origins.
 
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I wonder what happens down the road when the original owner goes to sell it online, and doesn't specific anything specific about it's true origins.

Yup, and that's the frightening thought, isn't it. I wonder how many knock-offs will be/are sold that the new owners don't suspect are fakes. Techs will likely be the ones giving the owners the bad news that what they have there is a fake or forgery, rather than the real deal.

Rant alert :mad:

This is just one of the reasons I have never been a fan of the Asian-made horns. These companies--and yes, that includes Yamaha--have a history of ripping off the designs of well-known European makers, and manufacturing and selling them for less. This put a lot of the established companies out business. Camera, car, etc, etc, companies of course all went through this.

Smarter people than I when it comes to economics, can argue the merits of these business practices, but at the end of the day, this is what we're left with. People have become accustomed to things for cheap, and there are seemingly a never-ending bunch countries willing to undercut each other, and provide cheaper consumer goods, of poorer quality. The result: big-ticket household items that now have an average life expectancy of 5 to 7 years instead of 30. Everything has a built-in obsolescence to it. So I ask you: this is a good thing why? To keep the economy going? How's that turning out?

Rant over :rolleyes:
 
rant on .... LOL

Yes Yamaha, Toyota, et all copied.
Even the US company WT Armstrong copied Keilwerth horns to make them in the US with cheaper US labor costs. Though did not mark them as Keilwerth, but as their own horn.

But in China you have to have a partner to build your stuff for you. You also have to release patents to them.
They then sell the stuff out the back door.

This is just another level. In China copying an item is not considered a problem, they consider it good that you copy a problem to exact details, even cars http://www.carscoops.com/2012/02/china-jac-does-it-again-with-ford-f-150.html
or even a bunch of other cars ==> http://www.carscoops.com/2011/09/oh-chinayema-auto-presents-clones-of.html

It was believed that copying was a way of learning, showing admiration and respect.
I agree it is a way of learning, recreating a process is definitely a way of learning. After all, in the beginning there was only ONE saxophone maker. Then someone else copied the design, and so on and so on.

But in China patents is another thing altogether with it's problems.
a nice long article about patents in China, and lack of international enforcement ==> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-iconic-designs-flogging-fraction-price.html

The problem is, you don't want to publish your patents to the Communist China patent office. Because they'll probably use them, if they haven't already stolen them electronically lol.

Of course, you know, they copy towns too ==> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23067082

But copies are one thing, as long as they are not labeled as another product. Which, just looking at the car examples above is something they are willing to do at a much larger scale.

Until international patents mean something in China we'll see more and more of this problem.
 
This is just one of the reasons I have never been a fan of the Asian-made horns. These companies--and yes, that includes Yamaha--have a history of ripping off the designs of well-known European makers, and manufacturing and selling them for less. This put a lot of the established companies out business. Camera, car, etc, etc, companies of course all went through this.
If you consider the Yanagisawa 6 Series and Yamaha 61 series as copies of the Selmer Mark VI, I tend to agree with you -- although the Yamaha 61 looks a lot more different from the VI than the 6 Series. However, neither the 6 nor the 61 were the first saxophones from either company. Both the 61 and 6 Series were introduced in 1970/71, which is toward the end of the line of the VI (1974ish). So, while Selmer could and probably did complain about Yamaha and Selmer copying the VI, Yani and Yamaha were copying a discontinued model. Selmer thought that the Mark VII was the future and they sold a lot more VIIs than VIs. I think Yamaha's big success was more with the YxS-21, then 23, series of student horns. Hey, I don't think you'll get too many folks saying that a Bundy II is better than a YxS-23. I also don't think that either Yani or Yamaha were trying to fool anyone. The horns were called "61" and "6," after all.

For my $, I would rather say that the Yani 880 (introduced around 1980) and the Yamaha 875 (introduced around 1988) are better copies of the Mark VI. 1981 was the year Selmer came out with the Super 80, which one could argue is more a happy medium between the Mark VI and Mark VII -- and you could also argue that the Super 80 wouldn't have come out if there wasn't such a thing as the Yamaha or Yani horns.

Also, note that Selmer USA had an excellent horn that was sort-of a copy of the Super 80: the Omega. The great Omega horns didn't stay around for long, but they were really nice and at a really good price.

Regardless of my above prose, building a saxophone-shaped object and slapping the name of a different company on it is not just bad, but would be illegal in the US. I wouldn't mind if the manufacturer said, "We're the Shampoo company and produced this new horn. It's a copy of $discontinued_horn."
 
If we look at what happened in the 1970s to many of the German saxophone companies--since those are the ones I'm most familiar with--those are the ones who suffered the most under the cheap, Asian imports. Hohner, Hammerschmidt, even JK, et al were now having to compete against the onslaught of the first large wave of Asian-made horns, and in the end, it caused many of those companies to cease saxophone production, or retool how they did business.

Fast forward to just a few years ago, and we're seeing exactly the same thing again with the few remaining European sax makers. B&S: out of sax production. JK: sold (X 2 wasn't it?). Orsi: also out of sax production. Etc. Only add one more into the mix: Yamaha. Now they too are suffering the fate that they inflicted onto the Europeans only 4 short decades ago.

To save everyone from reading--or ignoring--a thesis critiquing our consumer culture, and how we got here, I'll just shut up now. ;)
 
The US manufacturers had the same fate.

Selmer USA, Conn, etc
All mostly asian made horns now.

On a positive note, kinda, new manufacturers (selling Asian horns) popped up. Antigua, Mairaut, etc. which was more competition for the well known names.
 
Also, note that Selmer USA had an excellent horn that was sort-of a copy of the Super 80: the Omega. The great Omega horns didn't stay around for long, but they were really nice and at a really good price.

Actually, price-wise there were only a couple hundred cheaper than the top brands.
I have a couple catalogs from WWBW and NEMC from back then - I'll post a few pics of the sax pages.
 
IIRC, one Omega ad said something like, "Can you have a great professional horn for under $1500?" The answer was, "Yes." But that's just a bit under $4000 in today's $. A new Super 80 Serie III is a shade above $6700, so it is a relative savings :D.

Regarding the Germanic manufacturers, you could say that the "Asia" of the 1950s and 1960s was Italy. I've waxed prosaically about that in a few places, particularly about Ditta Giglio, who produced a lot of student/intermediate horns for a lot of companies, including Buffet. And some were good horns. I think the only difference was that Yamaha and Yanagisawa was producing quality professional horns as well as the student/intermediate stuff. It does, however, strike me as interesting that if most of a company's income is from those student and intermediate lines that Ditta Giglio didn't last longer. Maybe because of not enough exposure? It's an interesting question.

Regarding Orsi, I don't think they were ever out of the sax business. They may have not had a standard lineup of soprano thru baritone, but they did have sopranos and contrabasses available and I've seen earlier saxophones. However, you could add to your list of companies bought and sold a couple times Buffet and SML.

I like how a lot of the Italian horns now look, especially the horns from Rampone & Cazzani. I'd have to do more research as far as quality. IIRC, a repairman wrote on SOTW that there were some "set up" issues.
 
Regarding Orsi, to my knowledge, they are now no longer making saxophones. I don't know with 100% certainty what that means for their contras, but to my knowledge, it was all saxes.
 
Note that it's called a "Salma" in the URL. I like that.

I'm sure there are $500 baris somewhere on that website. I might check, later, on my Mac. Hey, safe browsing.
 
Interestingly ... http://www.marketwatch.com/story/al...akes-grow-2016-05-18?mod=MW_story_latest_news

excerpt from above article

Alibaba has canceled co-founder Jack Mas appearance this week at the annual conference of a prominent anti-counterfeiting group.
In a statement posted online Tuesday, Alibaba said that Michael Evans, Alibabas president, would address the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition in Orlando, Fla., on May 19 instead of Ma. The coalition had admitted Alibaba BABA, +0.19% as a member in April, but said last week that it was suspending the newly category under which Alibaba was admitted in consideration of some of the concerns raised by our membership.

 
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