The Selmer Company traces its roots back to the late 1800s. Two brothers, Alexandre and Henri Selmer graduated from the Paris Conservatory as clarinetists.

At the time, musical instruments and accessories were primarily handmade, and professional musicians found it necessary to acquire skills allowing them to make their own accessories and repair and modify their own instruments. By 1900 Henri had gained a reputation for his reeds and mouthpieces and he opened a store and repair shop in Paris. He soon expanded into the construction of clarinets. Meanwhile, Alexandre had moved to the United States, performing as principal clarinetist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1895 to 1910. Soon after Henri began making clarinets, Alexandre opened a store in New York City to sell his brother's instruments and accessories in the U.S. The Selmer line of products gained a great boost in reputation and sales by winning a gold medal for their clarinets at the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1918 Alexandre returned to Paris to assist in the family business, leaving their U.S. interests in the hands of their employee George Bundy. Bundy expanded the retail and distribution component of the business, carrying instruments from other companies such as The Vincent Bach Corporation, Martin and Ludwig-Musser.

Bundy quickly decided to expand into flute manufacturing, and hired George W. Haynes (from a family of well-known flute makers) to design the Selmer flute. Selmer flute manufacturing briefly moved to Boston, Massachusetts, home to several reputable flute makers, to draw on the existing skilled labor pool there. Bundy also hired Kurt Gemeinhardt, a young craftsman from Germany with a growing reputation, to assist in the design of Selmer flutes.

By the early 1920s, Bundy was finding New York City too cramped for the growing company, and he moved the manufacturing facilities to Elkhart, Indiana, which was already home to several other instrument makers, and had a skilled labor pool from which to draw workers. The New York facility remained in operation as a retail store and distributor until 1951.

In 1927 or 1928 (sources differ) Bundy purchased the American business from the Selmer brothers. Though technically independent, the Henri Selmer Co. of Paris and Selmer U.S.A. remained the exclusive distributors of each other's products. The French company concentrated on higher-quality, more expensive instruments for the professional musician, while the American company concentrated on mass-produced, less-expensive models for the student or amateur musician. These were often produced under the Bundy brand name, started in 1941.

Growing industrial expertise in plastics throughout the 1940s eventually spread to the still-small world of musical instruments. In 1948 Selmer produced a commercially successful molded-plastic clarinet, called the "Bundy Resonite 1400." World War 2 brought a halt to the manufacture and import of the Paris instruments, and for a brief time (1944-early 1946) Selmer plants were used almost exclusively for export packing as part of the war effort.

The baby boom and an increase in school music programs led to a substantial increase in the band and orchestral instrument business throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Taking advantage of this growth spurt, Selmer began acquiring other instrument manufacturers, including The Vincent Bach Corporation (brass instruments) in 1961, Glasel String Instrument Service (violins), and the Ludwig-Musser Drum Company.