I usually carry my guitar in a Blue Heron gig bag, the banjo the same. I have a Mark Leaf guitar case that I've had for almost 50 years. The Mark Leaf was decorated with a Glenn Ohrlin painting of cowboy roping a calf. The Leaf case is for when I have to worry about the guitar. It has survived hitch hiking in zero degree weather, a freight train wreck, and drunken folksinger tap dancing on it. it does protect the custom made instrument from anything.