This Banjo originally came from Wyatt Fawley. It's a Fawley Retrotone pot with a Rich & Taylor neck. Wyatt said that the neck came from a banjo hangout member, picked up in some sort of trade; the guy had done a poor job of finishing it and Wyatt re-finished the neck and put it on one of his Retrotone pots. He did a superb job, I thought it was a virgin finish. Wyatt seemed to think this may have been one of the last necks for R&T to come out of FQMS (they supplied necks to R&T). His retrotone pots have a Kulesh ring, very similar to the standard 20hole but speced a touch different by Wyatt, it's got a Gill pre-war style resonator (I think it's much better than anything I've seen from Jimmy Cox). It has a KatEyz pinned bridge on it.
Wyatt does flawless work and it's a really sweet banjo, but I just don't play it.
This is a great read about the Retrotone http://archive.banjosessions.com/dec04/fawley.pdf and I agree with what Wyatt says here, the tone and volume are great on this banjo.......seems odd that more builders haven't picked up on some of this stuff.
reminds me of some of the old Grenada resonators of days gone by, nice grain and Fawley's inlay work is hard to beat.
Comes with hardshell case
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