[Guto]

Have you guys got Selmer's direct marketing email yesterday? This is the first of this kind I've ever seen. Looks like they are taking a pro-active shift in their marketing strategy after their change in ownership.

Their website has been redone too, after decades of stagnation. And they've put together several very interesting articles on instrument manufacturing, sounds production, etc.

I must say all this material has been very well done. Glad to see them investing in maintaining their brand. I hope they are investing as much in maintaining the quality of their products too. Gauging by a video I saw of how they are making mouthpieces now with a multipoint laser measuring system, that was very impressive. A great improvement over their very manual traditional process.

Wishing Selmer many more years of success in this very competitive market nowadays.

 

[milandro]

I didn't but maybe you are on their preferential list (although I have a good relationship with the Dutch Importer) I receive stuff from Buffet ( don't know why) though

https://www.selmer.fr/fr/

yes, it looks nice

 

[dexdex]

Yep, same over here, very good impression overall.

 

[Guto]

here is what the beginning of their email looks like, entitled "�� New impulse for Henri SELMER Paris".
it goes on with a few more article links (all available on their website).

having lived in France for several years, and having started learning sax on a SA80-II while there in 1991, I'm a bit biased... but I do wish them continued success. they carry the lineage all the way back to Mr Sax.

 

[Benjamin Allen]

Have you guys got Selmer's direct marketing email yesterday? This is the first of this kind I've ever seen. Looks like they are taking a pro-active shift in their marketing strategy after their change in ownership.

Their website has been redone too, after decades of stagnation. And they've put together several very interesting articles on instrument manufacturing, sounds production, etc.

I must say all this material has been very well done. Glad to see them investing in maintaining their brand. I hope they are investing as much in maintaining the quality of their products too. Gauging by a video I saw of how they are making mouthpieces now with a multipoint laser measuring system, that was very impressive. A great improvement over their very manual traditional process.

Wishing Selmer many more years of success in this very competitive market nowadays.

What did I miss about their change in ownership? Who bought them out? Who runs the company now? Argh! The things I miss logging on here too inconsistently.

 

[hallda01]

I see they also dropped the "Seles" from the Axos name. Good call on that one, hopefully it will clear up some of the confusion about the horn.

 

[Guto]

What did I miss about their change in ownership? Who bought them out? Who runs the company now? Argh! The things I miss logging on here too inconsistently.

https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?307409-Selmer-Paris-to-be-sold-!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Benjamin Allen]

https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?307409-Selmer-Paris-to-be-sold-!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you!

 

[Keegan]

Looks like they have their own version of Masterbuilders now in the “Workshop.” Maybe you will see some signature horns, and the beginnings of a Custom Shop... I’d like to see a, 56’ Mark VI Reissue Relic. Lol!

 

[Benjamin Allen]

It's been several years since Selmer (Paris) was sold to the investment fund, and yet we haven't seen many changes from them. Was Selmer (Paris) operating that efficiently or was it just a money grab? I don't know. But I hope their marketing continues to improve.

 

[Enthusiast65]

It's been several years since Selmer (Paris) was sold to the investment fund, and yet we haven't seen many changes from them. Was Selmer (Paris) operating that efficiently or was it just a money grab? I don't know. But I hope their marketing continues to improve.

Same French investment co who bought Buffet and they've done a fantastic job with Buffet-Keilwerth-Courtois. No reason to believe they can't do as good a job or better with Selmer. Investors tend to leave new acquisitions be for the first year or two where management has been left in place before putting in key new people and applying their imprint.

 

[Sigmund451]

Its no surprise. Sooner or later with all the marketing for good horns at lower prices Selmer has to jump back in the game. Im a fan, but if you already are not sold on the brand, there is a lot of noteworthy competitors.

I would assume Selmer is aware of a whole new generation of players that are not seeing their sax hero playing a VI.

 

[Guto]

Investors tend to leave new acquisitions be for the first year or two where management has been left in place before putting in key new people and applying their imprint.

Right, that's true even in the fast paced tech industry I work in. Nothing too surprising that this only came out now. I'm actually impressed by the quality of their re-vamp kick-off this short time after acquisition. It shows their determination to succeed.

Selmer has a strong reputation. They are right to come in strong leveraging that, not letting it erode. As Phil said, competition is much fiercer now than it was 20 years ago.

I see they also dropped the "Seles" from the Axos name. Good call on that one, hopefully it will clear up some of the confusion about the horn.

Interesting observation. The Seles name is still engraved on the horn, and the seles.fr website is still up. But in this Selmer new site they did indeed make no reference to the parallel brand, presenting the Axos model along with their other instruments. Looks like the Seles name will drop out eventually. I agree that's a smart move too. The name was doomed from beginning anyways. Who wants a sax that sell-less?

 

[milandro]

Same French investment co who bought Buffet .......

Wrong, they are two different companies, one is Fondations Capitals and the other one is Argos Wityu ( buffet had been with Argos Soditic)

https://argos.wityu.fund/press-rele...-henri-selmer-paris-from-its-founding-family/

https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/fondations-capital-acquires-buffet-crampon--d3a5d02a

 

[Reet McVouty]

In order to be on their mailing list you would have needed to purchase a product from them and then either have filled out a product registration or survey of some kind. Anyway, good luck to them. I've never even considered buying a Selmer horn, IMO they're over priced, and today there are a lot of quality instruments out there at a better price.

 

[dexdex]

You can simply "like" them on FB, they use that channel quite well, keeping you informed with their latest news. They also sponsored a big virtual saxes streetband project in France this spring during the C19 quarantine, donating (draw) an alto sax among the participants.

 

[Enthusiast65]

Wrong, they are two different companies, one is Fondations Capitals and the other one is Argos Wityu ( buffet had been with Argos Soditic)

https://argos.wityu.fund/press-rele...-henri-selmer-paris-from-its-founding-family/

https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/fondations-capital-acquires-buffet-crampon--d3a5d02a

Oops, thanks for the call out. I felt so sure

 

[milandro]

joining Selmer France and the Buffet group ( the largest woodwind corporation in Europe and one of the largest in the world) would have been creating a monster of replications.

Don’t forget that behind these acquisitions there was the German and French government trying to preserve, as much as possible the industry and the workers. When Buffet acquired Schreiber and Keilwerth lots of things changed and at least 300 jobs were lost because of duplication.

 

[LostConn]

But in this Selmer new site they did indeed make no reference to the parallel brand, presenting the Axos model along with their other instruments. Looks like the Seles name will drop out eventually. I agree that's a smart move too. The name was doomed from beginning anyways. Who wants a sax that sell-less?

Actually, assuming that "SeleS" is eliminated from both the Axos alto and the Presence clarinet, and the mouthpieces in this family, but that all such gear continues to be sold, then I'd describe the SeleS subbrand not as a failed experiment, but as a successful trial balloon.

Remember that the challenge for Selmer in the last decade was to somehow compete on price with the Japanese and even the Taiwanese manufacturers without diluting the Henri Selmer Paris brand. The company was clearly nervous about outsourcing the keywork on some horns to cheaper factories -- would anything less than "premium," 100 percent Mantes-made products at every level taint the mothership? So they decided to label the new, less expensive instruments "SeleS" to provide a safety margin.

Well, it may be that Selmer has determined the answer to the question about tainting to be "no." Even if people aren't wild about the Axos, they don't hold it against, say, the Ref. 54 or Series III that the Axos has subcontracted keys. Customers understand that you get what you pay for (honestly, Selmer could have learned this from Yamaha's example of producing professional, intermediate, and student instruments with no loss of reputation). So if the Axos and Presence are going to be kept in the catalogue, and they aren't causing any branding damage, Selmer might as well discard the clumsy SeleS name and just admit that Selmer Paris is selling some less expensive horns. But the SeleS brand worked -- it taught Selmer what it needed to know.

 

[dexdex]

Excellent analysis. Yamaha has a strong corporation behind, Selmer Paris remains a small and exposed company. They just don’t have the surface to maintain 3 (or more) parallel product lines like Yamaha. Speaking of those 2 brands, one fantasy could have been Yamaha buying Selmer. They did it with the prestigious Bösendorfer pianos.