Selmer Mark VI Tenor 77158 Original Lacquer Very Good Condition Great Deal! 1958

On Trial May 17 2022

It would be hard to find a better deal on a Mark VI tenor at the moment. This horn just got tuned up by Aaron Barnard in Cedar Rapids (great repairman), and it plays effortlessly with a big, powerful tone. The tone is medium dark, and focused with lots of power. It brightens up when pushed, but this is the sort of tone that people love in a good 80k Mark VI. It sounds a lot like my 81k. The only reason this isn’t priced about $3k higher is that it had a neck pickup removed, and has had a few minor past repairs. That doesn’t matter when Aaron does the pickup-ectomy, because he puts a ‘flush plug’ in that matches the curve of the brass inside and outside. It’s like the pickup was never there. Besides that, this was a one owner horn, and it was played a lot but well cared for. The only other past repairs I see are a few dings removed from the back of the body tube and bow (bow ones are basically invisible, and the back of the body ones look like a tiny cloudy spot, for example above the serial number). And the bell flare had a crease removed and is in the correct contour now and feels just fine. Neck is in great shape aside from the lacquer loss from when the pickup was installed in the first place. As repairs go, none of these is very serious, and the horn plays just how it should.

For an original lacquer 1958-59 VI, you’d typically have to pay a lot more than this. I’m pricing this one on the low side for what it is, so that someone can get a relative bargain on it. The market is a bit confusing to folks right now, with people on eBay and some private websites listing horns for 3-5x their actual value. I’m not going to do that. But I’ll tell you this horn would be priced much higher elsewhere, and it is an excellent value if you’re looking for tone, and not cosmetic perfection, but you want a horn in good shape, from a great vintage and serial number, and with original lacquer. That’s what this is. There’s only one available, so get it before it’s gone.