Let's Add a Selmer Model or Two ...

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
I had mentioned on saxpics.com, several years back, that there was a low B model Selmer 22 (picture linky). So, that's not a really interesting thing, anymore.

I was browsing on the www.selmer.fr website today and I saw that there's something called a "Series 1922." There are a couple nice pics of the horn, too.

Anyhow, I checked for the only pic of a low B Selmer 22 I've got that has a clear enough shot of engraving for me to see if it says "Series" or "Modele." It's "Series."

Look at the serial number ranges, though. The low B horns I've got pics of are early 900's. The tenor on Selmer's website is s/n 983. I'm not 100% sure, though, that the low B horn was sold first and then they switched to the low Bb or if they offered them at the same time. Why do I dither? Many European companies offered low B horns -- probably using Sax's patent -- as an "introductory" or "lower cost" horn. And they did this for a looong time. A good example is Keilwerth's Modell V, which was made in the late 1930's.

In any event, it's quite probable that there was no real change to the bore from the Series 22 to the Modele 22. It does give me a new thing to look for, though :).

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I said a model or two, right? Check out this one. While it's a one-of-a-kind, it was made by Selmer. I wonder if Selmer can sue Cannoball for the stone idea ....

I think I'll be playing on this website for awhile.
 
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I ran into a Modele 22 in a secondhand horn shop over in New Orleans back in 2006. It was badly worn, and the finish was (as might be imagined) in pathetic shape. It was also overpriced, something in the neighborhood of a thousand bucks.

I had come to New Orleans with some disposable funds on the off chance that I would encounter a musical bargain, but this horn was just a hair out of reach. The next time that I visited the shop, it was long time gone.
 
Modele / Serie 22

I have two Modele 22 Altos...one in lacquered brass...one in silver plate. Neither one is currently in good playing condition. I paid $ 500 for the silver one...$ 650 for the brass one.

I have seen photos of at least one 'Serie' 22 Alto (I'm almost certain that they are marked 'Serie'...not 'Series') and I think it was on eBay...a long time ago.
 
SOTSDO said:
Wouldn't it be the other way around? In any event, design patents are notoriously hard to enforce.
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Selmer was first, so they could sue Cannonball. If, of course, they made a claim that the amethyst inserts did something to the sound :).

Selmer 22s, 26s, 28s, Largebore and New Largebore -- I'm checking into the nomenclature, a bit -- are all very overvalued for what you get. I've mentioned that the Conn models of about the same time (for instance) are much more advanced. Of course, you could also argue that the companies that Selmer bought saxophone stencils from, before 1921, were more advanced instruments.
 
pete said:
Selmer was first, so they could sue Cannonball. If, of course, they made a claim that the amethyst inserts did something to the sound :).

Selmer 22s, 26s, 28s, Largebore and New Largebore -- I'm checking into the nomenclature, a bit -- are all very overvalued for what you get. I've mentioned that the Conn models of about the same time (for instance) are much more advanced. Of course, you could also argue that the companies that Selmer bought saxophone stencils from, before 1921, were more advanced instruments.
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Common sense says absolutely not. INAL, but I've looked at intellectual property concerns long enough to know that common sense has nothing to do with it. Even with the codified ideals of "obviousness" "prior art" and "triviality", the patent process tends to assume that all applications are proper, regardless of of stupid, obvious, or trivial they are.

Look at software patents. IIRC, the plugin and the shopping cart are two obvious evolutions of the internet which were patented a decade prior to actual implementation by others. The patents themselves were horribly academic, obscure, and broad. Those that were awarded the patent had nothing to do with developing the underlying architectures that made these things possible and didn't even develop a single line of code to facilitate their patent.

Patent lawyers bought these patents, and then sued major corporations for royalties. it has been postulated that you can't write a "hello world" program without violating a patent.

Imagine if I patented the following:

"image processing codecs that enabled representations accrossed an IP network that allowed organic rgb receptors to utilize depth perception"

what do I know own? what have I done to earn this ownership?
 
Just as long as they don't patent RFC1149. Although, they might try with a European or African swallow to get around patent restrictions.

(Techie humor. Ignore me.)

Anyhow, that really was the first thought I had when I saw that Selmer: "Hey. It looks a lot like a Cannonball Stone Series!" (Oddly, I can no longer find a good close-up of the Cannonball neck. The closest I got was http://cgi.ebay.com/Cannonball-Teno...ltDomain_0&hash=item35a65c362c#ht_3174wt_1135.)

My second thought was that I've seen the side Bb/C/altissimo vent keys done that way on a different horn. Keilwerth did that. I'll have to check some horn dating to see if Keilwerth was first or second with that design. Not that it's an earth-shattering idea. Besides, one can successfully argue that a Keilwerth design is really a modified Kohlert design which is a modified Conn design :).

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EDIT: As mentioned, I'm really on sort-of a sabbatical from posting and being admin-boy so I can play around with some website ideas. Part of that will be an "overhaul" of my Selmer pages from saxpics.com in light of the above-mentioned horns. Done a lot different than what I did on saxpics.com, tho. In other words, you'll see these and more again. I'm not sure if that's a promise or a threat ....
 
... and there appears to be a Modele 1922. Yup. Modele 1922. Not Modele 22.

I've checked a bit more into my archived pics and I've found a bari stamped "Series 1922."

Research is continuing. I'm enjoying this. I wonder if I'll find the mythical "Mark IV" ....
 
Sometimes I think at this early stage, Selmer was making it up as they went along.

One thing I think that differs from lots of other people - the Modele 22 plays great. If you get one that is in perfect playing condition, it will scare you to death. Check out David Bilger on his Modele 22.
 
I was thinking of putting a comment on my 1922 Selmers page along the lines of, "I had an acquaintance with one of these. It sounded like a saxophone."

The 22s have a bunch of problems for players to overcome: no front altissimo F, not exactly ergonomic keywork, etc. I wouldn't mind if someone gave me one, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one.
 
pete said:
I was thinking of putting a comment on my 1922 Selmers page along the lines of, "I had an acquaintance with one of these. It sounded like a saxophone."

The 22s have a bunch of problems for players to overcome: no front altissimo F, not exactly ergonomic key work, etc. I wouldn't mind if someone gave me one, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one.
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Wow Pete, for someone who's so knowledgeable about vintage saxes, you sure don't like many of them. ;) :p

I think the ergos, lack of front F, bis Bb, rollers, etc. are all things that a player learns to live with, or perhaps without, when they have a vintage horn that they're familiar with. (Right Groove?) It's a trade off. Sure, I could go out and buy modern horns, but to me, there is just a certain undefinable "something" that my vintage horns have, that the modern horns I've played don't. The only modern horn that I've played that I like almost as much as much as my vintage ones is Gandalfe's Reference 36--however that might have been just the exception to the rule. I've since played other Reference 36s that have not been in the same ballpark as his.

Some of my favourite saxes are the ones with the worst key work. But... they have the most lovely core tone of any sax I have heard. For example, I'm thinking of my 1886 Buffet baritone. So it's a HP horn. I do see some unaccompanied baritone stuff in my future, and the key work (including the double octave key) is just part of the package. No big deal.

I sometimes think players are lazy, and are looking for the easiest way to get from point A to B with the least amount of effort. While that might be a good thing, and advantageous much of the time, we also need to remember that sometimes, the best part of getting to B, the journey, not the destination.

I'm not implying that vintage saxes are for everyone, and that everyone should rush out and buy up every vintage horn on the market. I just think we need to be ask ourselves what we want to get out of our playing. What will a modern horn get us? What will a vintage horn get us?

For the majority of players (especially those just starting out, and who are not at least intermediate players) modern is certainly the way to go. However, after that, when a player is faced with the option of stepping up to a better model of horn, they might consider having a discussion with their instructor about the pros and cons of vintage horns. After that discussion, going out and play-testing a number of vintage horns to hear and feel for themselves what the little beasties are all about, is really paramount to making an informed choice.
 
I'm still of the opinion that the vast majority of folks buy vintage instruments because they're cheaper. Hey, would you rather pay $1600 for a Model Peter Ponzol Keilwerth pro horn or $1600 for a Yamaha 23 student horn? I'd take the Keilwerth. However, if I had the money to burn, I'd get, say, an Inderbinen. Or, considering Inderbinen doesn't have a bari, I might try out that Yani Silver-Sonic. Or maybe the Selmer S80 III Jubilee.

For those of us who play low saxes, there's no reason to fret about the lack of a front altissimo F. I also know that there are folks out there that prefer the keywork layout of, say, a Conn 30M. Nothing wrong with that, either.

For the record, there's only one vintage horn that seriously blew me away. That's a Conn 30M. And you've gotta remember that I don't like Conns. I did play an absolutely minty Selmer Mark VI bari and I thought the sound, action, etc. were all just about perfect. However, I couldn't afford that. I've also owned an Evette-Schaeffer curved soprano in absolutely stunning silver plate. I don't think any modern horn except *maybe* the PG Yanis could compete with it in terms of looks.

Anyhow, I also know that some people are folks that are ONLY interested in the horn's tone. I want tone, keywork and intonation in about equal amounts -- I'd scrimp a little on keywork if the other two would offset the keywork. The best vintage bari I've ever played, a gold-plate Buescher True-Tone succeeded in only two areas (tone & intonation).

I dunno. I haven't heard anyone saying that the Modele 22 is the pinnacle of saxophone perfection.

Just an opinion, tho.
 
I have a Modele 22 C-melody, darn near 100% original silver plate. It plays very well, but I have no idea what it might be worth. It must be pretty rare though, as I hardly ever even see pictures of them.
 
French-made C melodies are all fairly uncommon. I think there are two very good reasons why:

1. WWI. Most French businesses were just rebuilding. The US was different because, while a lot of US servicemen died, the US wasn't bombed or anything. None of our infrastructure was destroyed.

2. While the saxophone -- and the C instruments in particular -- were really big in the US, I don't think that happened in France. It could easily be a case of, "Well, the folks HERE like the alto and the folks in the US like the alto, but the folks here don't care about the C instruments. And it costs good money to export horns that might not sell ...."

Or it could simply have been a case of, "Well, Conn and Buescher have this market all tied up."
 
Here ya go.

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Thanks! Beautiful horn.

IIRC, the last Selmer C melody was one of the Selmer Super Sax series of horns. Also, IIRC (because it was a few years ago), it sold for around $4K.

Also, IIRC, Groovekiller had mentioned that there were a couple with low A keys ....
 
I heard about 1 with a low A and I remember seeing a Balanced Action c-melody many years ago on Ebay. This one had right side bell keys.
 
The highest C melody I have in my archives is 12762, which I wrote down as "New Largebore." Research is continuing, though. Selmer's got a few catalogs on their website that I'll be interested in. I also thought I had seen a BA C melody on eBay years ago, but I would have snagged pics. I don't have any.

The latest curved soprano -- which Selmer finally admits they made -- I've seen is 318xx The serial number is firmly "Balanced Action," but it's got left-side bell keys. In other words, it's probably a much earlier design than a specific "BA" version.
 
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