Dupont Vielle Reserve Brazilian 2008, Natural

A wonderful build from Maurice Dupont of France. Maurice was an apprentice of the legendary Gypsy guitar maker Jacques Favino, and in 1986 he began building his own Selmer style guitars which quickly became the most popular choice of professional Gypsy guitarists.

From Maurice on the Vielle reserve:

"Having repaired many "Selmer" and "Maccaferri" type guitars, including re-building missing or broken pieces, we had the idea of making a guitar in the same spirit of those restorations. Thus the Dupont "Vieille Reserve" model was born. It is the most exact replica of the "Selmer" jazz guitar. All our know-how and most seasoned woods have gone into the creation of this exceptional instrument.

The dimensions are the same as the "Selmer" type guitar. Similarly, we use the same species of woods; the back and sides are in laminated Indian rosewood.

This model is finished with a nitro-shellac mixture applied with spray gun after filling the pores by hand. The machine heads and tailpiece marked DM, are designed and built in our workshop; they are exact copies of the original.

Each Veille Reserve guitar is numbered and delivered with a certificate of authentification and a bottle of Cognac."

This example features a spruce top with layered Brazilian rosewood over Mahogany back and sides. It plays exceptionally well and sounds phenomenal with only very light fret wear that does not effect playability.