Antique Banjos

Long ago, a banjo picker living in San Diego rescued a discarded banjo from a dumpster. Dan preserved the abandoned 5-stringer and transported it to the Heartland when he relocated to Missouri decades later.

Years past by, and Dan joined our G&F bluegrass band. He gave the forlorn instrument to the BRC founder who had just opened a basement banjo repair shop.  Although it was otherwise unmarked, a patent date of Nov. 19, 1901 on the `No Knot` tailpiece confirmed that the instrument was manufactured over a century ago.

Rather than dress up the wayfaring banjo to become a permanent decorative wall hanging, the 5-stringer was refitted into playing condition and submitted to the three young sons of one of our fiddlers for field testing. The kids happily experimented with the instrument and loved telling the “dumpster” story to family friends.

Shared among this trio of active siblings, the restored 5-stringer held up favorably, and it was deemed sturdy enough to be gifted to the BRC founder`s grandson in Texas where it resides today.

Dan has since retired from the G&F band and is much missed, but his son Terry has joined us adding masterfully nuanced  guitar work to the band`s repertoire.

How many vintage banjos have been fated to a trash bin and vanished forever?

Not infrequently, musicians will drop-off old dusty mystery banjos for study and/or comments at the BRC, and sometimes the instruments are left there forever.  An antique “Conservatory” 4-stringer recently appeared in our shop featuring a peg head surfaced with so-called pearloid.

This primitive plastic was first synthesized in the late 1860`s by swirling pieces of celluloid (nitrocellulose) in a solvent and letting it cure into a solid mimicking mother of pearl. The material was first used to make attractive ivory-like knife handles in the 1870`s, and by the 1920`s it decorated drum rims.  Gibson began using it to inexpensively ornament guitars in the 1930`s. Since then, the glimmering imitation pearl has earned the waggish title “mother of toilet seat” and is also known by the acronym MOTS.

Not too long ago, an otherwise unmarked 5-stringer with a brass “Puritan” plaque at the base of the fretboard was left-off at the BRC for an estimation of its date of manufacture.

The banjo proved to be built circa 1895 as confirmed by a search in the “Encyclopedia of American Fretted Instruments, pre-Civil War to WW 2”  on the <mugwumps.com> website. This impressive anthology of over 1800 stringed instrument builders and their brand names was a work-of-love by the late Mike Holmes, an archivist of folk music instruments.

At a recent Farmer`s Market surrounded by flame-colored autumnal foliage, a plucky trio of Bluegrass musicians bravely huddle-up in late Fall chilly temperatures to entertain shoppers with archival, if not ancient, old time music. Tips went to the Children’s Hospital.

The yearly autumn Folk Festival at the Boonslick State Park is a time-travel excursion into the pioneer life of rural Missouri in the 1800`s.  The fest offers demonstrations of 19th century hand crafts like rope making and quilting, period dress, exhibits on frontier living, the Civil War, and Native American artifacts.

Bluegrass pickers again provided an acoustic backdrop of traditional music for the 500 plus mid-Missourians who visited the one-day Fall festival.  A burly listener in overalls and hunting cap recognized the BRC founder as a banjo picker who performed at a rural saloon 25 years earlier. “Are you originally from these parts?” he inquired.  The banjoist replied that he grew-up back East, and the response was, “So, you’re a Yankee?” Hoping the festival-goer was familiar with Mark Twain, the musician politely fibbed, “Well, a Connecticut Yankee.” The listener declared, “Well, I’m a hillbilly.” The banjo player offered, “I`ve lived in Missouri since 1979, so maybe that makes me half a hillbilly?” The man in overalls slowly smiled, nodded in agreement, and strolled away.

A few days before the Boonslick gig, a fiddler/singer in the BRC founder`s band gave him a well-worn banjo to study that she had discovered in an antique shop. It appeared to be an unmarked entry/student level “flush fret”  5 stringer with design features suggesting that it was manufactured circa 1890. The pot was fashioned from a singe piece of wood bent into a ring-  a lost art form of rim construction. Closer inspection revealed telling clues.

When the uniquely structured tailpiece was cleaned-up with metal polish,  a patent date of January 4, 1887, was unveiled. An online search indicated that this patent was held by C.P. Post and G.N. Durkee, and their tailpieces were assigned to the Lyon & Healy Company in Chicago.  (At the turn of the century, Lyon & Healy was the largest music publisher and instrument builder in the world.) The undersurface to the ancient calf skin banjo head bore faint inscriptions which were clearly undersigned by “O.H. Boon, Laplata, MO.” The Boonslick State Park is located about 65 miles south east of Laplata.

From 1893 to 1901, the Sears and Roebuck Company contracted with S.S. Stewart Co. of Philadelphia to build banjos for sale as the `Acme`  brand via catalogue marketing. Most but not all of these instruments bore the `Acme` label, and a few had incidental `S.S. Stewart’ markings. Some banjos were unmarked but clearly an S.S. Stewart product, although the Bay State and Luscomb manufacturers  made strikingly similar designs in that era probably in response to buyer preference.

One such unmarked but well-crafted 5 stringer appeared for repairs in the BRC workshop this autumn.  The tip of the peg head of this high-end instrument had a subtle absent white mother of pearl diamond amidst a cluster of 4 intact inlays.

Two yellow abalone inlays (arrows) were missing from the upper fretboard`s elaborately engraved wreath and wire floral pattern, and small wood chips were fractured off the neck- pot junction area.

The spun over rim,  brackets, and talon tailpiece had a soft golden hue suggesting an unplated brass alloy, and the heel of the neck was festooned with handsome wood carvings.

The color tone of the inlays had aged significantly over the last century, and newly installed white mother of pearl was at least a half-tone different from the native peg head inlay.

A similar yellow abalone to somewhat match the discolored fretboard decorations was hard to locate but eventually obtained from a shop in Taiwan.

The neck had no truss rod and about a 5 degree forward bend to it. The inlay pattern and wood defects were patched-up gently because the wood was so dried-up and fragile that it was  prone to crumble.

The owner was advised to get nylon strings to prevent further deformity of the neck of this vintage banjo that still had a charming and warm tone.

During the mid 19th century, troupes of minstrel show musicians toured England igniting a craze in Britain for America`s homespun music and its signature banjo.  In 1859, Stephen Van Hagen of Albany, NY,  patented  a 7 string banjo- the very first patent of its kind.   Alfred D. Cammeyer, a Brooklyn born composer and entrepreneur,  relocated from the US to London in 1888 to cultivate the profitable banjo market there. At the end of the century, banjo sales remained a fertile business in the UK. The colossal  musical instrument company owned John H. Buckbee of NY manufactured banjo parts that were shipped to London to be assembled and sold by the English distributor Joseph Wallis.

A forlorn Buckbee/Wallis 7 string banjo was recently discovered in a small antique store in rural Missouri by a  guitarist who brought it to our  workshop for restoration as guided by a recent article about the BRC in a local newspaper.

The instrument`s “J.H.B.” initials imprinted on the heel of the neck confirm that the parts were manufactured in NY by J. H. Buckbee.

The “Guaranteed American By… Wallis ” inscription on the dowel stick assured the buyer in London that the banjo was a genuine product of the USA- birthplace of the minstrel tradition.

Buckbee died in 1897, and his business effects were publicly sold. Wallis & Sons were still listed as musical instrument makers in 1915.

Clad in a rim of German silver,  the spun-over pot interior was fashioned from a single bent piece of wood- a lost art form. After a clean-up, the original craftsman`s single marks for bracket positions and triple marks for dowel stick alignment remain visible as well as the overlapping seam of the wood rim.

A close-up study of the crusty nut reveals multiple string slots. The BRC founder`s theory is that the instrument was initially built for 7 strings (white arrows) in NY and then shipped overseas to London and sold. After the banjo made its return transatlantic journey back to the the United States, it was then converted to a five string (red arrows) instrument more familiar to the American musician.

Following our restoration of the instrument, an antique Bell Brand tailpiece was applied to anchor nylon strings. Thomas Nelson Jr. owned the Bell Brand string franchise which he merged with two other manufacturers in 1897 to form the  National Musical String Company (NMSCo.). In its day, this conglomerate was the largest manufacturer of steel strings in the world, and the  original factory of the now defunct enterprise still stands in North Brunswick, NJ, as a National Historic  Place.

The banjo neck has a unique `flush fret` series of markers supplementing  its traditional fretless fingerboard, and these stripes aid the musician in proper fingertip position. A new goatskin head was applied as well as non traditional pancake outrigger geared tuning pegs. The most common tuning for this rare bird 7 stringer is: gGcdgbd.  The guitarist  who brought this precious 120 year old  banjo to us has graciously donated it to the BRC Collection where it will be treasured.

From the BRC: Our workshop staff wonders if the number 7 is a lucky digit for the BRC, as our website search engine stats just surpassed 700K hits, and we are grateful for this milestone .