Bought an old tenor banjo for myself, what do you think?

http://www.gbase.com/gear/the-gibson-tb-0-tenor-trap-door-banj-1925-dar

Not really sure if I made the right choice. I’ll have to wait and see I guess. Wish I could have went and checked some out but that wasn’t an option for me . I love old instruments, it’s sort of an obsession for me, I suppose I could’ve gotten a New import and not worried as much, but .. 🙂

I know a lot of people like 19 fretters for Itb but coming from mandolin and fiddle, this might be easier for me to handle at first.

So what do you think about these old gibson tenors? The dealer says it’s been setup. I think it might need a new head, I’ve got a good banjo restoration tech not too far from me that I can contact if needed

How does it sound to you? How does it feel? That’s what’s important, not what a bunch of strangers on an internet forum think.
However, FWIW I wouldn’t replace the head- it’s the original calf-skin, which was part of the cost, and which would cost a pretty penny to replace. You could try cleaning it up a bit or let it proudly show its age.

@5stringfool

It’s still on the way to me in a big brown truck. That’s why I’m a little anxious, I wish I could buy all my instruments in person but that’s just not possible where I live

I like it! I have a Slingerland May Belle 17-fret.

Oh I should add this is my first tenor banjo. I play mandolin mostly but would like to be heard a little bit 🙂

Also what strings would you suggest I start with? I realize every banjo is different, and I’m fine with doing some experimenting, but I’d like to know what’s a good starting point

I have one of those. They’re really short scale, the pot is undersized, and there’s no tone ring, giving a very mellow sound, about as twee as tenor banjos get. The door is an interesting gizmo, not that it makes a huge amount of difference to the volume. They’re a complete snap to play, even more than the standard 17 fret instrument, the neck is quite narrow too.

While there’s no tone ring, which is a lump of metal the skin of the head sits on, there is a tone hoop, which the skirt of the head rests on top of, so perhaps yours will be a bit louder than mine, which is missing its hoop. A fellow ’round where I live plays various instruments including a TB-0 and teaches an Irish music class; I asked his students if he could be heard above the din, and they said yes he can, so apparently you can get some decibels out of these things. But I think Gibson made different trap door banjos and perhaps this guy has one with a tone ring.

One irritating thing about them is the bridge, which is very tall, if you want/need a replacement a standard three legged Grover model won’t work, unless you glue wooden “shoes” to its feet to make it taller; or carve replicas, which I did as well.

The pot is something like 10 1/2“ instead of the typical 11”, you can get new plastic heads in this size from Elderly Instruments or Bob Smakula, so it will set you back about $22 for a new head. A plastic head will give you a decibel or two more, which have I told you yet? you’ll be a bit hard up for.

Dunno about strings, I seem to buy the same gauges for everything, it doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of difference to things, unless the low G is floppy or the high E is thin; 12-18-28-42 or something along those lines. Incidentally the low G on these things is just inherently floppy, all these banjos from the old days were meant to be tuned CGDA, tuning banjos GDAE came in with Barney McKenna in the 60s and it works OK with larger instruments but doesn’t always happen with smaller scales like yours.

Wow thanks Kevin that’s a lot of good info. I don’t think the volume should bother me too much, I hope not at least. The session I attend is pretty small, and I’m not very good yet obviously, so I don’t want to be the center of attention or anything.

I was thinking I should take the old skin head off and save it for provenance, then put a renaissance on it.

I actually have some medium heavy daddario mandolin strings that are pretty close to that gauge, so I might just try those first.

I haven’t been able to find any example of anyone using one of these for Irish trad so it’s good to know at least one person (the teacher you mentioned) does.

Do you happen to know the actual scale length of these? I can’t find that info anywhere.

What would prevent me from just using as heavy a string as I need for it to not be floppy sounding anymore?

19“, I believe: http://www.gbase.com/gear/gibson-tb-4-tenor-banjo-1924 That’s a TB-4 which is slightly more upscale but I think that’s the same basic instrument. I remembered correctly about the 10 1/2” pot. Mine came with the original head but a few months back I decided to put a Renaissance head on; well, I had to file slots in the head’s skirt with an assortment of circular files to make room for the hooks, so there’s another thing to be aware of here. This can be a problem with some old banjos, the hooks are that bulky and the modern skirts are so thick that you have to make room somehow. Some people bend the hooks around the skirt, I have an old banjo-mandolin that’s had that done.

19" is just really short, I put as heavy a low G string on but it was always a bit mushy. Moving on to full scale 19 fret instruments solved that problem.

One more fun fact - ever watch this show Reno! 911? It was a wholly improvised parody of COPS!, basically. Watching an ep one day I was startled to see the head of the cops, Lt. Dangle, start singing a song while strumming one of these TB-0s.

Kevin- if you could find (or make) a tone hoop for yours, I guess that would reduce the need for the non-standard high bridge?

Stok - on an old instrument start with light strings and increase gradually until you find what you like. A light G might be 36, heavy 46.

I’m beginning to think this might be a good choice. I think I need to do some more research first.

I do like an Aria tenor banjo I’m looking at now on ebay. 19 frets, made in the 70s, so probably has better tuners. The longer scale may be harder to deal with at first, but it’s cheaper and will probably give me less trouble

I can still call off the gibson deal before they ship, I think that what I’m going to do

The bridge that came with my banjo was the original, the head sits on the rim of the pot, the hoop is just there to ostensibly modify the tone and doesn’t actually affect the action.

I have an Alvarez banjo from the 70s, a company based in the Far East like Aria; it’s quite loud and has a very heavy tone ring and plays nicely but the tone is really booming and dull. It’s a flathead like the Aria on eBay, a copy of a Gibson Mastertone, or “Masterclone” as people call them. That makes me a bit wary of other Asian tenors from that era, although I did play an Aria in a store that was really fiery - but it was tuned in CGDA, perhaps the instruments come alive in that tuning but don’t do much in the lower tension GDAE tuning. Or perhaps the lively sound was due to its being an archtop instead of a flathead - archtop banjos are, broadly speaking, brighter. Hard to say. I only paid about $200 for the Alvarez, I think $325 is a bit much for an Aria but ask around.

Interesting, yea it looks like the alvarez and aria tenor banjos are pretty much identical. Same inlays same, headstock, same resonator etc.

I think I might call bernunzio and ask him what he thinks would be a good choice for me. He has quite a few in my price range, and of course they are a well respected shop

That looks like a fine instrument, and quite similar to my TB-2, which (in my opinion at least) sounds great.

I wouldn’t put a plastic head on it though. The banjos of that era weren’t designed to have plastic heads, so why try to modernise it? You might find that the original head is fine, but if not it’s not too hard to fit a calfskin head yourself. The internet is full of advice. If you are buying a vellum, if at all possible try to get a good thick one. They are easier to fit and sound and look better. Sometimes they come very thin, almost transparent. (I have fitted several to different sized banjos.)

Here’s my banjo: http://www.earnestbanjo.com/gibson_banjo_TB-2_8266-7.htm

Replacement bridges of various sizes and heights are also available from many retailers around the net, so there should be no problem setting it up yourself.

I find the 10.5 inch head is very comfortable to work with. In fact I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on another for a little Frankenstein banjo project I have in mind.

Enjoy your new instrument 🙂

In answer to the original question; if you leave it on the back seat of an unlocked car, you might come back and find two or three more there as well…………

I like it! I hope it has good sound quality….
I hope you enjoy it!

@Tash, that’s a really nice looking banjo.

@Stok, my session teacher (probably the person Mr. Rietmann is referring to) told me to try and find a Gibson 17“ Trap Door banjo. They’ve really gone up in price, and I’d have to order it from eBay or something … so I’m getting a Deering Goodtime 17” tenor instead. It has an open back … not quite so loud. I played it and really like how it feels. It’s always a crapshoot buying something sight unseen anyway.

To answer your question, Stok, my teacher’s Gibson TD banjo definitely gets heard above the fiddles, boxes and blowey instruments.