1870’s-1880’s Fretless Banjo from an Unknown Maker
1870’s-1880’s Fretless Banjo from an Unknown Maker. Every now and then you find a banjo that defies the vintage banjo norms and succeeds beyond all expectations. This late 1870’s, early 1880’s banjo has been in my personal collection for about 20 years and every time I take it out with the intention of selling it, I remember why I really like it. So now that I really am ready to allow this banjo to go to a new home, let me tell you why it is an amazing banjo. The neck is made of 25 alternating layers of rosewood and maple, giving a stripy effect. The heel is a round heel similar to those seen on Buckbee and other early New York City school banjos. The transition from the neck to the peghead has a “dart” similar to what is seen on the back of a Martin Guitar peghead. The peghead shape is a slightly tapered rectangle, rounded at the top and the tuner holes are staggered. The peghead and fingerboard are made of highly figured maple veneer and the fingerboard has some light cross scratches in what I assume was an attempt to have “training wheel” fret markers. The 11” oak rim is spunover with nickel silver and has 16 brackets. All original shoes are present and 11 of the original tapered square nuts are present. The five non-original nuts are smaller, period square nuts. The tension hoop is steel with a wrapping of nickel silver. We did the restoration about 20 years ago here at Smakula Fretted Instruments, and this is what I remember doing; New tapered dowelstick, handmade rosewood tuning pegs, refinish inside of rim, install vintage calf skin head, Set up with LaBella gut banjo strings and a Dobson star tailpiece. I have this banjo tuned to an open D tuning, and it responds really well. My version of Wild Bill Jones came out rather lonesome sounding just now. Though the banjo has the neck strength to accommodate tuning to modern pitch and tuning, I do not recommend it. If nothing else, the low tuning helps prevent the hard to find gut strings from breaking. The sting height is lowish. 7/32” over the fingerboard at the rim and I positioned the bridge for a 24-7/8” string length. I find it very comfortable for me to play. The price of this one of a kind, approximately 150 year old banjo is $3,000 and I include a Levy’s gig bag.