G'day Charley,

Coincidental that you should revive this thread ... with its old heading. I have just come home from the auction of my late Dad's home- the house where I grew up ... and in the back of my car, along with various family mementos, were two 5-string banjos ... both belonging to my older brother, Eric.

Eric has not been able to play for some years due to work-induced hand injuries and both banjos need repairs, so I said I would take care of them while I locate parts and, if necessary, repairers. One is his original banjo (apart from the home-made one with a 10" cake pan as a head that we made back around 1963) ... This is a fairly standard Vega, that has a crummy tailpiece that has broken in several places.

The other is an old (late 1890s?) Clifford Essex, marked: CE SPECIAL XX. This really needs to have more modern pegs fitted to handle steel strings, to replace the old friction pegs - a compound construction with black plastic heads driving turned metal pegs. Otherwise, it seems to be a nice old banjo - old vellum head, open back, ebony fretboard, dark (rosewood?) neck, lots of mother-of-pearl inlays, 29 tensioners. I need to chase up some banjo repair types to see what we can do to get it going ... if not Eric!

Reagrds,

Bob Bolton