[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

The nicest open back banjo I've owned was a kind of frankenbanjo, namely a 30s tubaphone pot with a bart reiter neck. Unfortunately I had to sell it, but I made some recordings with it, if you want to hear the thing:



Man, did that banjo ring...

I also had a really nice (and much cheaper) Lyon and Healy 'ladies banjo' built in chicago in the 20s, which had a great old time sound and - yes, i'm going to say it - mojo.

Current banjo is a UK built 'shakelton' by the British Banjo Co. circa 2010 or something, now sadly defunct. Very low frills, but it does the job.

Another banjo worth mentioning (I've had a few) was another British built one by J.E.Dallas, circa 1920. It was also low frills and low weight, but packed a lot of punch for its size.

There were, surprisingly, quite a number of very good banjo makers in the UK in the early part of the 20th C, a lot of whom made instruments for export to the US. I'm sure many of them have already been mentioned, but it's worth keeping an eye open on ebay and the like, as they're mostly very well built and very affordable.

Anyway, I hope that's of some use to you. I won't spam the thread with videos of myself like some mad narcissist, but there are videos of all of the banjos I've mentioned above on my youtube channel if you're interested. Happy plunking!

Nice "Lost Indian" CosmicCowboy and your now-gone Frankenbanjo sounds wonderful!