Here's some info on Windsor. I've seen a "Whirle" for sale on the Net for a lot more! Any old banjo is worth having as a piece of our musical heritage but I'm biased as a "5 stringer".

'British Makers Ancient' was abstracted from the The Banjo Story by A.P.Sharpe serialised in the B.M.G.Magazine 1971-1973

WINDSOR
As a young man, Arthur Octavius Windsor acquired a thorough knowledge of wood and metal
working and by 1887 had a small factory in Birmingham for the making of coffin 'furniture'.
He played the banjo as a hobby and when the instrument started to become universally
played he made some instruments after his own design. He had his own bench in a corner
of his factory where he fashioned the instruments that carried his name as maker.

His banjos proved popular and in three years he had set up an instrument factory in Newhall
Street and was employing a staff of twenty-five, all making banjos. Very soon his range
of instruments included most of the fretted instruments. He made the first mandolin
banjo with a back built up of separate segments and in 1893 took out a patent to use
the same method for the backs of zither-banjos, although he continued to use one-piece
backs on his cheaper models.

At school, Arthur Windsor had been called 'Castle' and he adopted the silhouette of
Windsor Castle as a trade mark and called his premises in Newhall Street 'Castle Works'.
(In addition to the Newhall Street factory, he had sawmills and a wood-working plant in
Mott Street). In the early days, Windsor tested every instrument before it left the factory.

In March 1892 he teamed up with Arthur J.Taylor, a prominent Birmingham teacher and player
of the banjo and the firm of Windsor& Taylor came into being.
Taylor had begun to teach the banjo in 1881 and had first met Windsor in 1885 whilst trying
to find a good banjo of English make to sell to-his pupils. They-did business together for
some time before entering into a deed of partnership. It was at this time the firm started
to make open-back banjos. In January, Windsor & Taylor organised the Birmingham B.M.&G.
Orchestra which gave its first public concert in March of that year. These concerts became
regular affairs (at which the leading soloists of the day appeared) and the orchestra also
visited such places as Coventry, Leamington, Liverpool, London etc. Windsor and Taylor
entered the publishing field and this, coupled with the public appearances of A.0.Windsor
and A.J.Taylor (both of whom were first-class banjo soloists), did much to publicise the
instruments they made and a studio was set aside for him in the factory to enable him to
carry onwith his teaching activities. The fact that Oakley changed to zither banjo and was
playing a 'Windsor' did much to boost sales.

Unlike other manufactures of the day, every part of the instruments made by Windsor &
Taylor were fashioned in the Newhall street factory, including all the metal parts used.
The latter were always 'non-standard' so that a replacement could only be purchased from them.
In 1896 the firm published a 50-page booklet How a Zither-Banjo is Made. Given away free
of charge it helped sell the instruments which were already a household name.

In 1901, Taylor left the firm and then the title became Arthur 0. Windsor. He had a stand
at the British Industries Fair, White City, London, which was most impressive and did much
to make the Windsor products known to overseas buyers. In 1928 Windsor brought out his famous
'hollow arm' zither-banjo with its revolutionary resonator-type back. Windsor made
instruments for other firms and would copy any design or model. They also supplied
many of their cheaper stock instruments branded with the retailer's name as maker.
The firms range of banjos, zither-banjos, banjolins and mandolin-banjos was wide because,
they offered a large discount on catalogue prices, their lower-priced instruments
became known in the trade as 'pawnshop banjos'. These instruments could always be
found in pawnshops throughout the country where they would be offered for sale for
as much as 50%, below the catalogue price. The firm ceased to exist in December 1940
when the factory was destroyed in an enemy air raid. Up to that time Windsor was
probably the largest maker of fretted instruments ever known in this country. The
output of the Newhall Street factory in Birmingham must have been many thousands of
instruments each year.

Cheers

Eugene