Attention all banjo players who want to try stroke-style/ minstrel-era banjo! This is the perfect package to get you started, and in style too!
I am selling my fretless gourd banjo that was made by Barry Sholder last October. Barry designated this as "Banjo #039." I am the original owner of this gourd banjo, and played it three times at most before an injury took me out of commission about a week after I got it backed from my luthier, who modified it to make it more playable.
My fretless banjo looks great, but more important is that loud, deep, and rich sound emanates from the large kettle gourd when the banjo is played. Note that I upgraded the tuners from ebony violin friction pegs, which cost about 7 bucks, to PegHed planetary tuners that I believe have a 4:1 gear ratio. They cost me $100, plus the $30 my luthier charged me to install them, but they make tuning the banjo infinitely easier than using violin friction pegs, especially for a novice. It honestly took me 15 minutes to tune this gourd banjo when I had the ebony violin tuners installed in the peghead, so I do not regret paying $120 for the PegHeds. It was tough to find someone willing to install these, since very few luthiers work with them, and they have to be installed in a very particular way.
The #039 that I am selling has the following features:
1. Large kettle gourd- 5.5 inches deep, 9 inches wide at the head, and 1 1/8 inches thick, finished with clear coat
2. Nice wooden tailpiece that makes changing Nylgut strings a breeze
3. Goatskin head, glued to the gourd then tacked on
4. Curly maple neck (one issue, noted below)
5. Ebony fingerboard, full-length (i.e. no clawhammer scoop)
5. Black walnut peghead overlay
6. Modifications: 5 PegHed planetary tuners that imitate ebony friction pegs
7. Action height: 1/8 inch at where the twelfth fret would be, with a 1/2 inch bridge installed (I'll include taller minstrel bridges so you can adjust the action to suit your preferences)
Barry usually signs all of his banjos, and numbers them too, but he did not sign and number my #039 that is the subject of this listing; however, I still have the original receipt that Barry packed in with the banjo. It looks like a Barry Sholder, and I have the receipt in his handwriting, so believe me, it is one of his banjos.
As to the issue with the neck that I referred to above: Barry formed the neck out of two pieces of curly maple wood. The length of the neck is one solid piece of curly maple, but Barry epoxied a 0.25 inch by 1 inch piece of curly maple to the main body of the neck to create the Boucher ogee outside of the fifth-string peg. This forced my luthier to install the 5th string PegHed in the existing hole that Barry drilled so that the epoxied ogee would not pop off if the PegHed was bumped, or if the epoxy weakened with age and string tension. In sum, playability and reliability is not affected if you orient the fifth string as shown in the photos I posted; this is not the suggested way of orienting the fifth string from the tuning peg on a Boucher neck, but it gets the string spacing nearly parallel between the bridge to the 5th string peg. Keep in mind that this is not a factory banjo, and that my professionally trained luthier did everything he could to get the string spacing nearly perfect.
Other than what I just mentioned with regards to the neck and the lack of Barry's signature, this banjo is pretty much perfect (he did not tell me why he did not sign and number this banjo on the back of the peg head, as is his custom).
In addition to the banjo, I'll throw in the following semi-rare materials for free:
1. Phil Rice's Method for the Banjo, With or Without a Master (Reproduction, original published in 1858)
2.Buckley's New Banjo Method (Reproduction, original published in 1860)
3. Banjo tablature paper, so you can tab out the previous two books if you need to
4. Five spare bridges - 2 are 0.5 inches tall, the other 3 are 0.625 inches
5. 2 sticks of Hill peg compound, if for some wacky reason you want to reinstall friction pegs
6. 2 packs of LaBella No. 17 nylon strings (these stink, but the wound fourth in the set will help you extend the life of Aquila Nylgut sets
7. 4 packs of Aquila Nylgut Classical Banjo Strings - 3 sets are for G tuning, although they work fine tuned low, and 1 set is meant for the low minstrel tunings
8. More Minstrel Banjo, by Joseph Weidlich (this is Frank Converse's Banjo Instructor, published in 1865, but tabbed out. This will get you playing minstrel banjo in a few minutes. It won't be fancy, but it will put a smile on your face!)
Feel free to ask me questions via the BHO. I'll be happy to answer them.
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