Well, last night it happened. A banjo playing friend and I have both been lusting after a banjo with a 'Tree of Life' inlay - the fancy vine that crawls up the whole length of the fingerboard. He - lucky SOB (that's probably sod, for you in the UK)- got one!

A couple of months ago he made a special order to Wildwood in California for their Tree of Life model, and he just unveiled it to a group of friends last night. It's a beauty! And besides looking good - with tons of mother of pearl for the vine, and blue, green and pink abalone for the flowers - it sounds great!

We test compared his old banjo, a good sounding Stelling, to the Wildwood, and, on the whole, the Wildwood had slightly more volume, a warmer tone (due to their 87% brass tone ring ?), good intonation and volume all the way up the neck, and extremely even tone balance between the low and high strings.

He even let me play it, and I discovered a downside I had not imagined with a fancy inlaid neck. Even though I thought that I played up the neck by the small dots on the side of the neck (and this Wildwood is well laid out with good dots) it is still damned hard to find your way around with solid inlay all the way up. Your eye keeps searching for the little open spaces to give an indication of where you are.

So, I have had my hands on a 'Tree of Life' and am satisfied. I'll now lust after the simpler necks in life!