If you look at a Selmer serial number chart, you'll note it starts with the Modele 22 at serial #750. I always wondered about these missing 750 horns produced before the introduction of the Selmer Modele 22. I got my answer a couple of years ago when there was a very odd looking Selmer for sale on eBay, which had a serial number of 656 -- and a 1904 engraving!

Anyhow, I immediately started bidding on this horn and ALMOST won. I missed by just a bit. Oh, well. I had the pics and started to do research.

I was happy to see that there was then ANOTHER of these horns on eBay, almost a year later -- and a more ornate one, at that!

RESEARCHING
The engraving: "Medaille d'or 1904"
I have seen a bunch of French horns that have won these "Gold Medal" awards: A. Sax himself, Cousenon, SML, etc. These are ALWAYS horns produced by the manufacturer indicated and would have been released in limited quantities around the date the medal was issued. I also knew that Cousenon and Adolphe-Edward Sax won in 1900 and Gautrot won in 1896, so that made a date of 1904 logical (i.e. every four years). Plus, I knew that Selmer moved to their Dancourt address in 1900.

I then sent a couple of e-mail messages to a couple other collectors and they suggested I try to do a bit more research through www.selmer.fr, Selmer's French website. I found it to be significantly different than the US website. I didn't find anything about saxophones produced before 1922, though.

However, I decided to just browse the Selmer website and stumbled upon their clarinet timeline. There in big, bold type: "1904 Gold Medal Winner, St. Louis." I had my confimation of at least SOME Selmer involvement.

The Alternate Theories
Dr. Paul Cohen, in his article "Selmer Legacies and Myths, Part I" (The Saxophone Journal [May/June 1994]), suggests that Selmer (Paris) also stencilled saxophones from both the A. Sax company and Couesnon. I then started to see if I could find a horn or two to compare to these "prototypes". I finally found a couple after searching for a long while.

Dating Problems
Oddly, the original Modele 22's that can be accurately dated to 1922 are vastly inferior to these "prototypes" and look more like an early-1900's Adolphe-Edward Sax horn. Instead these "prototypes" are mechanically and visually similar to the Couesnon "Monopole" model (introduced approximately 1913 [according to the New Langwill Index] and discontinued when Couesnon was "reformed" in 1931) and the later "Adolphe Sax" model, especially the last few made by Adolphe-Edward at the Selmer company in approximately 1928-1929.

I think, however, that the Adolphe-Edward Sax models produced prior to the Selmer buyout in 1928 look sufficiently unlike these "prototypes" for anyone to make a strong argument that these horns were made by A.E. Sax. One could build a case for A.E. Sax manufacture, though, but yo'd have to factor in a lot of retooling of the A.E. Sax design to produce the horns pictured here.

Finally, Dr. Cohen's publishes an ad in his article regarding "Selmer Saxophones (Paris)" that he dates to 1922. The article says that the horns pictured are the "Modele 22", but the design and engraving is that of these "prototypes".

So, I guess one can feel a bit confident in saying these horns probably date to between 1913 and 1922, rather than 1904. Research is ongoing!