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Washburn Style C Banjo from the 1920’s made by Lyon & Healy from Chicago. All original and in excellent condition. Although this model was sold as an openback banjo, I have fitted a walnut handmade curved bottom, matching resonator which adds a little volume and resonance.

-10 3/4 inch rim fitted with a Remo renaissance head
– Maple wood rim with walnut finish and tortoise shell binding and bottom cap.
-Washburn unique donut style tone ring.
-All original pot with the Washburn style stretcher band with 22 brackets, hooks mount into stretcher band center.
-Maple 2 piece neck finished in walnut with centre ebony strip.
-New quality geared tuners fitted.
-Overall length 30 inches
-Fingerboard length 13 3/8 inches with 17 frets
-Stained pear wood fingerboard with mother of pearl dots.
-Ebony heel cap with a mother of pearl inlay.
-Straight pegs with new buttons.
-Kershner tailpiece stamped “KERSHNER UNIQUE / LYON & HEALY / MAKERS / CHICAGO U.S.A.”
-19-3/4″ scale length, 1-7/32″ nut width
-The neck is straight and playing action is very comfortable with good frets.
-comes with a quality hard shell case.

For Sale £750

A little history of Vega | Martin tenor banjos

When C. F. Martin Co. bought the Vega banjo line in May of 1970, hundreds of parts were inherited from the Needham Heights factory near Boston. For several years, the Vega Martin banjo was an amalgam of parts from Massachusetts and Nazareth, PA. Old 6 digit Vega serial numbers persisted on a yellow sticker on the inner pot until production was moved to Pennsylvania in 1972.

Thereafter, C. F. Martin installed a serial number decal on the inner rim beginning with #2  and on through #1945.  Note the unique cluster of 3 sound apertures spaced around the  tone ring of the below VIP-5 model owned by the BRC founder (SN 1364). The company was sold to Galaxy Trading Co. in March 1979.

Features:

• Maple neck with sunburnt finish
• 19 fret ebony fretboard with mop dot position markers and ivory plastic bond fret board sides
• original Elton “pancake” tuners
• Vega logo mop
• 1/2″ maple triple ply rim surrounded by nickel plated flange similar to Vega Vox design.
• 5/8″ nickel plated tension hoop
• Resonator in sunburnt finish
• Comes with quality hard shell case

SOLD