First, let me start with the banjos that got away:

My first five-string was a Bacon long neck I bought in 1962, along with Seeger's book. I kept it for 10 or 15 years, finally trading it in on a guitar (stupid move).

Subsequently I had (briefly) some cheap openback with lousy action--I don't remember the brand or even what I did with it. Sometime in the early 80's I borrowed a long neck Ode from a friend, planned to buy it from him but when I brought it to him along with an offer he had sold it to another friend who bought it for his son. I had become interested in banjo again so bought a Saga kit--resonator, flathead tone ring, etc. I didn't do the greatest job putting it together, and Saga hadn't done a very good job drilling the holes for the coordinator rods, but it came to life when I put it in the hands of a good banjo luthier (Larry Cohea).

Then in the early '90s I went to an Oscar Schmidt (the name having been bought by Samick) with an aluminum pot--I didn't keep it long and went back to playing the Saga until I found in the same store where I had bought the kit and the aluminum beast a Gold Star arch top with hearts and flowers inlays--it was (is) a great banjo and I loved it except that as I was learning to frail at the time and kept knocking my thumb on the part of the head over the arch and had developed a painful bone bruise on my knuckle, so when the same store (The 5th String in Berkeley) had a Wildwood Minstrel hanging on the wall I sold the Gold Star to a friend and bought the Wildwood (which like most Wildwoods has a block pot and a tubaphone tone ring. I finally sold it a couple of years ago for much less than it is worth to buy a Gold Tone Dojo (thin resophonic guitar body with a banjo neck).

Also in the late '90s I bought a Gold Tone banjola which I rarely played, and sold it just this year.   Three or four years ago I bought one of the first Gold Tone Elite Classics made and kept it--without playing it much--until early this year when I donated it for a fundraiser.

One other banjo that came into and left my possession is a Rover with a plastic pot that I worked on to convert into a pretty good frailer--I took off the strings, changed the frosted pot to a fiberskin, replaced the guitar-style tuners with planets and the friction fifth string peg to a geared one, then pulled frets 18 to 22 out and rasped and filed out a frailing scoop. This banjo ended up in the hands of whoever stole my Honda Civic a couple of years ago.

Now, banjos I have--in the mid '90s I bought a banjerine--Slingerland pot with a 1s7 fret Vega style neck by Wyatt Fawley--from Michael Holmes of Mugwumps. This one left my possession for about a year when I left it on top of my car as I loaded my harmonicas and other banjo into the trunk after a jam, then drove away. I didn't realize it was gone for a week or so, then asked, Jim Hiatt, the co-owner of the 5th string to watch out for it. I had given up hope when one Saturday afternoon Jim called me and said that someone had brought it into the store--the somebody being Keb' Mo'--and when he heard the story wanted to give it back to me (after having bought it that day in a pawn shop). I talked to Keb' and told him I couldn't let him give it back to me, but that I would come to the store and pay him for it. But as I was leaving with my checkbook, I got the idea that maybe Keb' would prefer a banjo in exchange for it--and this brings me to another banjo I forgot to mention above--so I grabbed the Gold Tone Hoab model I liked but rarely played because the pot is 13 inches and I found it uncomfortable to play sitting down (as I do most of my playing), and set off to the 5th String. We talked, jammed a bit, Keb' invited me to go with him and his manager to a Taj Mahal concert in the city--it broke my heart that I had to refuse because of a prior commitment to my wife. So, anyway, the banjerine is back and will stay in my possession.

Not long after I bought the Slingerland via eBay, I found a 1890's S. S. Stewart at The Musical Instrument Exchange in Berkeley and bought it--from Marc Silber, who at the time was a partner--he now has his own store across town. The first thing I did to the Stewart was replace the frosted head someone had put on it with a fiberskin and replaced the friction 5th string tuner with a geared one. I was going to replace the friction tuners in the headstock with planets, but decided the neck was a bit warped and I loved the Fawley neck on the Slingerland I mentioned above, so I ordered an unfinished neck from Wyatt and had Larry Cohea install it. I played it for a few years unfinished but finally broke down and had Jim Hiatt finish it. This banjo is my number one player--sounds great, looks great, and is nice and light--this last characteristic causing me to abandon the above mentioned Wildwood as my main axe.

I also have another Rover which I converted to a fretless, after going through the other adapations I made to the Rover described above, a Gold Tone Maple Mountain--with a White Lady tone ring--I cut a frailing scoop into this banjo, too, and I like it almost as much as I like my Stewart/Fawley--which, alas, will never have a frailing scoop--I don't want to screw up Wyatt's fine work. And recently, to replace the stolen Rover frailer, I purchased another Gold Tone, a CB-1, which is a great frailer--essentially very similar to a Deering/Vega Old Time Wonder, at a third of the cost.

Charles