I had a Kay 5 string banjo when I was a youngun (from ages 10 to 20 or so.) It's the banjo I learned to play on. It was black on the back of the neck and body with a black and white headstock. It had a removeable resonator that was added someplace early during that time. I sold it for $35 in a backyard sale (however, I kept the case...why, I'm not sure). I sold it because I had replaced it with what was then at the time a seemingly much better chrome plated Japanese made no-name banjo. Within five years the Japanese made no name banjo pretty much self destructed...the drum head broke and nowhere in the local region could I find a replacement head that exactly fit right, making it barely playable. That led to me getting a 60's Gretch folk banjo that was playable, and then two Vega banjos that were highly playable and responsive. Then, some 30 years later from when I sold the Kay, I walked into a music store and there sitting in the store was another Kay banjo with an add on/removeable resonator. Same model as the one I had as a kid, and for the most part identically the same (although telltale signs let me know it was not the one I originally sold). Interestingly, it had no case. I chiselled the store clerk down to $85 and bought it. Fixed it up...neck angle, new bridge, tightened everything... and it actually is pretty good. Soundwise, intonation, and kind of fun to play when I periodically play it. When not playing it, it sits in the old case from my former Kay (which is a bit bizarre!)

QM