I have a beautiful old banjo. It has a Gold Lion which says 'British Made' under it on the top of the face of the head stock (very faded) and 'MELODY-JO' simply inscribed across the middle of the face of the head stock between the machine heads. It has 22.5 frets. It's nice and heavey and makes a great sound. The back of the body has a convexed (outward rounded) piece of laminated wood on it. The drum has 16 adjustable metal 'lugs' surrounding it, that all sit in the overall bowl that is the bottom of the body attached by/on four of these 'lugs'. Any one else got one like this??? My g-string (high) machine head is missing, so i play it as a four-string.
TIP!!!
If you tune the banjo, but then move up the fret board and find that the tuning is more out when you get to around the 12th fret, try adjusting the bridge. I tune her up, then play each string on the 12th fret to see if it's sharper or flatter, then slide the bridge up accordingly. You may find that the finished result is a diagonal looking bridge. Ha.