Selmer Mark VI Owners Club Survey Results

SOTW is the largest saxophone forum on the ‘Net. I’ve been a member since ’99, and over these past 10 years I’ve seen a lot of things on this forum. One of the most surprising, at least for me, is how the population of this once small forum, where everyone knew everyone else, has grown into this massive on-line community of over 30,500 sax players. While just under a 1/4 of them are really active, some of the more vocal ones have very strong views on Selmer Mark VIs.

Because there was such a love/hate dichotomy among a certain element of the SOTW membership, I thought it would be interesting to find out how many SOTW members actually owned the famed horn in question. Therefore, almost 2 years ago to the day, on November 23, 2007, I started a thread that I titled the Selmer Mark VI Owners Club. This thread included a poll where people could select what voice(s) of Mark VIs they owned.

While there are many limitations with this poll, and I’m not presenting this as solid research by any means, I think the numbers provide us with an interesting insight into how many voices of Mark VIs there are vis-à-vis each other. (At least distributed amongst the SOTW membership.)

As of this morning, on November 8, 2009, when I copied the results to date, there were more tenor owners than anything else. This did not surprise me. Nor did it surprise me that altos were next in line for numbers of owners. Out of the 357 voters who have participated in the poll so far, there are really only a couple of surprises for me.

I was surprised to see that the vote between the low Bb and low A baritone was as close as it was. You generally see more low Bb baris for sale than you do low As, so it would lead one to believe that more low Bb baritone saxophones were produced. Perhaps the SOTW membership just has a predilection for low A baris? Or Selmer produced nearly an equal number of the 2 models of baritone saxophones.

I was also surprised that none of the SOTW members who owned a Mark VI bass had chimed in, so one might think we have no Mark VI bass saxophones owned by the SOTW membership. (I know there are a few.)

I am curious what the 3 “Other” horns were that their owners voted on. I read through all the posts in the thread, but couldn’t ID the saxes in question. I can’t imagine what I might have missed. If anyone has any ideas, please leave a comment and enlighten me.

As I said, this was not intended to be a serious piece of research. It was intended to open up some dialogue on SOTW about the Mark VIs in a way that allowed for civil conversation. Asbestos suits not required. 😉  In the end, it not only did that, but this survey served as a template for other brands and models, as other SOTW members adapted it for their own needs and interests.

Who would have thunk it? Talk of the Selmer Mark VI actually bringing people together, instead of tearing them apart. Sometimes miracles do happen. 😯