Saxophones Selne saxophones

littleplum · Aug 21, 2009

Hi Folks

A pupil turned up for his lesson on Monday with a new purchase. It was a Selne (never heard of them) Tenor sax in silver. He had bought it for £100 from Gumtree. Ergonomcally it was reasonable but tone wise it was very good. I have just done a google search and it directs me to Selmer!

There is no serial number and no model number. The logo and engraving are rip offs from Selmer.

This one had been in the wars a bit but he had done some home repairs and it was working ok. He is going to repad it next.

Any help with info on this would be useful.

Cheers guys

Dave

Steve M · Aug 26, 2009

I've not heard of them either. If it doesn't have any number it's probably a Chinese instrument. There are so many names cropping up it's hard to keep track. Names that appear these days usually aren't the factory owners name, like Selmer or Buescher or Conn.
There have been quite a few Selmer "rip-offs" over the years. Selman etc Some of them were quite reasonable horns. Others weren't!

There are some that have a shops name on them which tend to be OK. Horns with no info are going to be from the cheaper end of the market. They cut unnecessary cost like serial numbers, though I've seen one or two cheap instruments have started appearing with them on too.

littleplum · Sep 6, 2009

Selna Saxophones

Hi Folks

Here is an update on this mysterious horn. First of all I spelt the name wrong, it is Selna not Selne.

I googled the correct spelling and was directed to a couple of old threads on SOTW. Started in 2003 it was talking about this make of horn but with no real info,that then dried up. The same thread ws restarted in 2008 by an english plaer who was selling one on ebay. He was offering to send pictures, so I contacted him and he still had the pictures.

It was the same sax as the keyguard was missing and it came with the same 3 mouthpieces (Yam 4c Yam 6c and a Brilhart). I think that my pupil bought it off of the person he sold it to through ebay, but they had managed to damage it as there was no damage on the pictures.

We are still no closer to finding out where these were made, but it is interesting tracing the family tree.

Regards

Dave

Steve M · Sep 6, 2009

If you can let us see the pictures maybe we could have better chance of identifying it(?)

AlanU · Sep 9, 2009

I've got an alto that is in the same sort of category.
It's a lacquered copy of a Selmer Mk VI, no numbers anywhere but on the bell is stamped 'GENESIS' and below that 'French Engineer'.

I'd guess it's about thirty-ish years old and is solidly built and actually plays rather well.
Resale potential is negligible, but it's still a pretty good sounding saxophone.
I haven't played it for yonks and would sell it, but what would I get for a no-name alto? Hardly seems worth the effort.

Having said that, I think I'll give it a blow tomorrow. Just to re-evaluate.