Selmer guitar

Selmer Guitar ("Selmer-Maccaferri"/ "Maccaferri") is an unusual acoustic guitar best known as the favored instrument of Django Reinhardt. It was produced by Selmer from 1932 to about 1952.
n its archetypal steel-string Jazz/Orchestre form it is quite an unusual-looking instrument, distinguished by a fairly large body with squarish bouts, and either a "D"-shaped or longitudinal oval soundhole.
The strings pass over a moveable bridge and are gathered at the tail like a mandolin.
The top of the guitar is gently arched or domed, achieved by bending a flat piece of wood rather than by the violin-style carving used in archtop guitars. It also has a comparatively wide fretboard and a snake-shaped slotted headstock. The back and top are both ladder-braced, which was the norm for French and Italian steel-string guitars of the time (unlike American guitars, which frequently employed X-braced tops by this period).
Other models can be more conventional in appearance and construction, with the Modèle Classique, for example, essentially being a standard fan-braced, flat-top classical guitar.

Early models have a large, D-shaped soundhole (the "grande bouche," or "big mouth"), which was shaped specifically to accommodate an internal resonator invented by luthier Mario Maccaferri - this was designed to increase the volume of the guitar and to even out variations in volume and tone between different strings. The scale, at 640 mm, and fretting of the guitar of the early guitars was very similar to other contemporary guitars (including the Gibson and Martin guitar designs from which most modern acoustic guitar patterns ultimately derive), but with a wide fretboard more typical of a classical guitar. Many of these guitars, produced during 1932 and 1933, were sold to the UK market via Selmer's London showroom (which also distributed the guitar to regional dealers) and it was during this period that the guitars became known as "Maccaferris" to Britons.

Before the advent of amplification, the Selmer guitar had the same kind of appeal for European players that the archtop guitar did in America: it was loud enough to be heard over the other instruments in a band. The "petite bouche" model has an especially loud and cutting voice, and even today it remains the design preferred by lead players in Django-style bands, while the accompanying rhythm players often use D-hole instruments. (This was the lineup in Django's Quintette du Hot Club de France during its classic period in the late 1930s, and it remains the pattern for bands that emulate it.) Modern exponents of the style often amplify their instruments in concert, but may still play acoustically in small venues and jam sessions. Gypsy jazz players usually couple the guitar with light, silver-plated, copper-wound Argentine strings made by Savarez (or copies of these), and heavy plectrums, traditionally of tortoiseshell.
Today, the Selmer guitar is almost completely associated with Django Reinhardt and the "gypsy jazz" school of his followers. From the 1930s through to the 1950s, however, Selmers were used by all types of performer in France and (in the early days) in the UK. The first Selmers sold to the UK market were used in the standard dance band context and were associated with performers such as Len Figgis and Al Bowlly. In France, the Selmer was the top professional guitar for many years and can be heard in everything from musette to the backing of chansonniers. Leading players ranged from Henri Crolla to Sacha Distel. More recently, the style of guitar (albeit a modification developed by Favino) has been associated with Enrico Macias.