The guitar that the bear is holding was made for me by the wonderful Emmanuance. Knowing of my obsession with Django Rheinhardt and gypsy jazz, she made a beautiful anatomically-correct Selmer Maccaferri Modele Orchestre “Grande-Bouche“. Apart from the distinctive shape of the body and the D-shaped opening (the “Grande Bouche“, or “big mouth“), she even managed to include details such as the famous moustache bridge and the stamped-brass tailpiece. Merci Emma!

My interest in playing gypsy jazz on the guitar has ultimately led me to the project of constructing my own Selmer copy. When my brother lived in Paris he visited the shop of the famous luthier and Selmer historian François Charle, where he picked me up a set of working plans for the Selmer Modele Jazz, an autographed hardback copy of the beautiful and lovingly produced “The story of Selmer Maccaferri guitars“, and a copy of luthier Michael Collins’ “Building a Selmer Maccaferri guitar“. Thanks bro!

Over the coming months I hope to document my progress making this guitar here. As I have no previous wordworking experience and obviously no lutherie experience, I expect this to be an interesting journey and a steep learning curve. Stay tuned…