Banjer,

I don't play the banjo. And when I fool around with one in the music store someone always says, "Oh, a guitar player trying the banjo." Obviously, I have no banjo skills beyond knowing a chord or three.

I have tried out the Deering Good Time banjo and it seemed quite playable to me. It was not hard to fret the strings and the frets seemed true all the way up the neck. For better or worse, it sounded like a banjo. IMHO it would be a good starter instrument. I noticed that some of the low-price is due to the lack of ornamentation. The only frill I can recall was the name burned into the plain wood of the peg head.

Roger in Baltimore