Agreed, there must be a certain lack of concern of the buyer, but we all know pressure can easily cause lack of concern of whatsoever.
I have two more thoughts here. First that Selmer Paris has been said to have been in trouble when they “agreed” to have an investor. I don’t know if the problem was the high cost of European manufacturing, dropping sales or other reasons within the company. This leaves the question if the current prices well above the competition’s just reflect European production costs or if they are calculated to compensate for diminished market share, following the marketing idea that the targeted customers who still want a Selmer will also just pay more. I have no idea how Selmer as a company is actually doing. Why does it matter? Because to me as a potential buyer it would make a big difference if the higher price goes into a real stabilisation of one of the most innovative sax makers of the last 100 years, or if it goes into the profit of investors with the company falling apart after being sold.
Second, the Eastman gives me the impression that the Chinese sax manufacturers listened. Since maybe the 1990ies a significant portion of sax players (the “vintage oriented”) asked for horns with sound and feel of the great vintage horns, with a lightweight and slick keywork. Manufacturers told us this is not possible when at the same time modern demands for a sax have to be met. So we got sax after sax with more accurate intonation, more homogeneous sound, more keywork, sometimes things like C sharp compensations, high f sharp, high g, most of them feeling heavier, many of them giving a rather closed blowing feeling, sometimes even stuffy, and what I would call a rather small sound, lacking the warmth and broadness of the great vintages. Selmer went so far stamping “Reference (your favourite vintage)” on horns that to my feeling had something of a facelift Series II or III. They actually must have believed we are just full of it and just want to show off something old when in reality “new is always better”. I believe they never considered that we are serious, that we actually want the feel and sound of a 10M or Super20 or SBA or Mark VI and would actually buy a new saxophone that goes more in this direction. Now I have to admit I haven’t tried many new horns in the last 25 years, so I may have missed others who listened. But with my Chinese horn I actually have the feeling that they seriously tried to go the way many players asked for and not only pretend. Of course there may be others, maybe even better ones. And I think it is a great development.
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