The Altamira M01 guitar is a Selmer-Maccaferri style instrument suitable for gypsy jazz music popularised by the great Django Reinhardt.
The Selmer-Maccaferri is a special steel stringed guitar best known as the favoured instrument of Django Reinhardt. Selmer, a French manufacturer, produced the instrument from 1932 to about 1952. In 1932 Selmer partnered with the Italian guitarist and luthier Mario Maccaferri to produce a line of acoustic guitars based on Maccaferri's unorthodox design. Although Maccaferri's association with Selmer ended in 1934, the company continued to make several models of this guitar until 1952. The guitar was closely associated with jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.
In its archetypal steel-string Jazz/Orchestre form, the Selmer is distinguished by a fairly large body with squarish bouts, either a "D"-shaped or longitudinal oval sound hole, and a cutaway in the upper right bout. The strings pass over a movable bridge and are gathered at the tail, as on a mandolin. Two "moustache" markers are fixed to the soundboard to help position the movable bridge. The top of the guitar is gently arched or domed—a feature achieved by bending a flat piece of wood rather than by the violin-style carving used in archtop guitars.
Specifications:
- Solid European Spruce Top
- Mahogany Neck
- Laminated Indian Rosewood Back and Sides
- Gloss Finish
- Ebony Fingerboard
- 670 mm (standard) Scale Length
- Strung with Savarez Argenine strings
