> Nah, wasn't a band horn...and really never played.
The wear on the keywork says it was played a lot. Hmm. The album's gone, so I can't prove my point, but whatever.
Yes, it's a Selmer Bundy. Note that there is a difference between Selmer Paris and Selmer USA, which made the Bundy horns. Selmer Paris made the high-end professional horns. Selmer USA more-or-less didn't. They're also the distributor for Selmer Paris instruments in the US.
The definition of "professional" usually means, "The best horn a particular company produced at a particular time that was aimed at the professional player." So, speaking very generally -- and switching to saxophone, because I know more sax models -- a Selmer Mark VI saxophone from the 1950s was a professional model. The current Selmer Super 80 Serie II and III are professional models. However, note that this doesn't mean that the Mark VI is, in some way, less professional because of its age. Additionally, that also doesn't mean that a Mark VI is better than, say, an SML Gold Medal sax or vice-versa. They're just different pro models. Also, while Selmer wants you to believe that the Super 80 Serie II and III are better than the Mark VI, a lot of folks say that the VI wasn't only better, it was the best horn ever made. Well, in alto and tenor forms, at least.
In recent years, some companies have offered several professional models. Yamaha, for instance, has the 62, 82Z, and 875. They're all aimed at the professional market and all are high quality and pros play them, but they're all made a bit differently. As another example, Buffet has about a half-dozen clarinet models that they call "professional."
A lot of companies have a professional model, an intermediate model, and a student model. A student model is generally cheap -- or cheaper -- in comparison to a pro model and isn't made with as much attention as the pro models. Intermediate models vary considerably, but they usually have some components/feature of the pro models and some components/features that are cheaper. As an example, the Yamaha baritone saxophones, the YBS-62 pro and the YBS-52 intermediate horns, look extremely similar, but the 62 (now) has a different brass alloy, a one piece bell, real mother of pearl inlay, a better neck, and a different color lacquer. It's also about 2x as much as the intermediate model, but if you're advanced enough to consider the pro model, you can play the two and tell that the 62 is really a better horn (FWIW, for me, the difference in quality wasn't worth the difference in price). Also note that, as before, one company's student horn can easily be better than another company's professional model.
Anyhow, Bundy was probably the biggest name in student instruments until Yamaha came along. While it's true that most Bundy horns are kinda bland sounding, they are also known for being able to take a beating and still play fairly decently, which is sorta what you want out of a student instrument.
