Pretty sure that’s my great uncle Bob Lauser engraving at the 1:14 mark!!! Gonna send it to my aunt to confirm but looks EXACTLY like pics of my grandpa from that era- and he was an engraver at selmer Elkhart!
I am amazed at the skill in hand engraving, and I wish I could do it. How can these men learn this skill without ruining a lot of instruments until they get proficient?
I wonder what year this footage was recorded? Some of the examples of engraving shown at the end, looks like engraving from BA horns made between 1935-47 approx., the workers dress looks like it could be from the 1950s-60s, I really don't know. I have a Selmer SBA tenor sax which was made in 1952, it plays beautifully and I love it, if I had to rescue only one object from my house, my SBA would be the one.
I've done some research on this... Mark VI are great because only the great one are left. They were/are fine horns (I have 2, not a hater lol), but the ones that are still around are the ones that ppl like and have good qualities, its not that every mark vi made was amazing, its just that through time the ones that are the best are the ones that people have 70+ years later.
The problem was there were too many mark vi's out in the world. People were buying used mark vi's instead of new ones. Selmer needed to create a new horn that was better than the mark vi to get people to buy a new horn. The same thing happens today with yamaha. Look at the Yamaha 62. Why did Yamaha make the custom Z and custom EX? It was the same problem. They needed 62 owners and those who would buy a used 62 to buy a "better" horn.
Question- After all those years of Selmer Paris sending Selmer USA their Mark VI models, and the USA men and women pretty much knowing them inside and out, were the Selmer USA 162 (alto) and 164 (tenor) their attempt to pick up where Paris had fallen after the Mark VII failed? Or were the Selmer USA pro models just a whole new sound design in the 1980's?? I'm guessing that many of the great craftsmen/women had retired by the time the Super Action 80 was launched. Either way, this video footage is AMAZEBALLS!
Golden age of horns. Just something different and special about the horns made in that era.
Pretty sure that’s my great uncle Bob Lauser engraving at the 1:14 mark!!! Gonna send it to my aunt to confirm but looks EXACTLY like pics of my grandpa from that era- and he was an engraver at selmer Elkhart!
I am amazed at the skill in hand engraving, and I wish I could do it. How can these men learn this skill without ruining a lot of instruments until they get proficient?
awesome craftsmanship.
Wow just look at all them Selmers hanging from the ceiling 😋
They omitted the reason the horns were assembled in the US rather than in France: to dodge US taxes.
I need to see that Royal Flush horn... I wonder if it's still out there somewhere
awesome
I wonder what year this footage was recorded?
Some of the examples of engraving shown at the end, looks like engraving from BA horns made between 1935-47 approx., the workers dress looks like it could be from the 1950s-60s, I really don't know. I have a Selmer SBA tenor sax which was made in 1952, it plays beautifully and I love it, if I had to rescue only one object from my house, my SBA would be the one.
Seriously if the Mark VI is so great why aren't they still being made? I suspect the workforce that made the Mark VI is just gone.
also the tooling and machinery
I've done some research on this... Mark VI are great because only the great one are left. They were/are fine horns (I have 2, not a hater lol), but the ones that are still around are the ones that ppl like and have good qualities, its not that every mark vi made was amazing, its just that through time the ones that are the best are the ones that people have 70+ years later.
The problem was there were too many mark vi's out in the world. People were buying used mark vi's instead of new ones. Selmer needed to create a new horn that was better than the mark vi to get people to buy a new horn. The same thing happens today with yamaha. Look at the Yamaha 62. Why did Yamaha make the custom Z and custom EX? It was the same problem. They needed 62 owners and those who would buy a used 62 to buy a "better" horn.
Question- After all those years of Selmer Paris sending Selmer USA their Mark VI models, and the USA men and women pretty much knowing them inside and out, were the Selmer USA 162 (alto) and 164 (tenor) their attempt to pick up where Paris had fallen after the Mark VII failed? Or were the Selmer USA pro models just a whole new sound design in the 1980's?? I'm guessing that many of the great craftsmen/women had retired by the time the Super Action 80 was launched. Either way, this video footage is AMAZEBALLS!
Mine was in the Paris factory
I wonder where these horns are now.
Two of them are in my house.
American assembled Selmer Mark VIs are pretty common.
I mean the actual horns in this clip.
45ans chez Selmer ,le savoir faire a disparu.