indeed how it plays and sounds wins hands down for me. Real quality vintage instruments usually play and sound better than the average. The epitome of having an instrument for its "name", in my experience anyway, was a guy back in the sixties who was called "The Banjo King" who had a huge collection of banjos, the best of the best and numerous times over. In the Chicago Sun Times article on this collector it was mentioned that he couldn't PLAY!

too sad!

CB