Chicago's Old Town School Of Folk Music had almost a complete set of Stuart Banjos donated to it around 1965.

Two or three of those disappeared from the wall in the front lobby of the School at 343(?) W. North Avenue where they were prominently displayed for a year or so.

After that, all of those STEWART BANJOS had interconnected wires woven through them so that whenever the wire had a disconnection in it a loud alarm would sound.

By the time I left my job as Asst. Manager of the Old Town Folklore Center there at the O.T.S.F.M. (1967) several more Stewart banjos were gone--and the alarm system no longer worked. Carol and I spent the next 2 years living on the Oregon Coast.

We returned to Chicago in 1969--- and for a short time, I, once again took a job at the Folklore Center.

(It felt like "day-job-vu -- all over again". ;-)

All but 6 or 7 of those banjos were still up on that wall---and nobody there at the Old Town School could tell me where those Stewart banjos went.

Art Thieme