KD Banjer - Posted - 09/13/2025:  09:01:31

1927 Gibson TB-4 no hole conversion (with Frank Neat neck)



I’m selling my 1927 Gibson TB-4 no-hole conversion, which has a 5 string neck made by Frank Neat.



It’s a killer banjo, and the pot is all original. It’s in fantastic shape for a nearly 100 year old banjo.



It includes the original case and tenor neck. I also believe that I have the original calf skin head that came with the tenor, but I’ll need to look for it.



If you know about the 1927-28 no-hole Gibson banjos, you know that their vintage tone is very sought after, and that there were far fewer TB-4’s (like this one) made than TB-3’s. Most of the banjos of that era had holes in the tone ring. These no-hole Mastertones from 1927-28 were the exception with their no-hole tone ring , which sounded more like a flathead banjo than any other arch top of that Pre-War era



Every month that I played this banjo after Frank made and installed the conversion neck, as the head and neck settled in, it sounded better and better, with an unmistakably old unique tone.



The neck and resonator on this TB-4 are mahogany.



This is what Ritchie Dotson said on his Youtube page about the 1927 no-hole TB-4:



“the 1927 Gibson TB-4 (these were mahogany) Conversion with their no-hole Arch Top tone ring. These original Pre War Gibson no-hole tone rings sound much closer to a Flathead than the 40-holes that came after them. These are usually dark and dry and loud and balanced. So, I love these old tube and plate no-hole 1927 style 4 banjos for that reason.” Link: youtube.com/watch?v=q7jegndQTjQ



I love this banjo, but I am playing more guitar than banjo these days, and when I do play banjo, I play a custom gold-plated Sullivan Granada mastertone (with a neck made from a 1904 maple piano upright) that Eric Sullivan made for me. The Sullivan gives me all the banjo-pickin’ happiness I need. I can’t justify to my wife keeping banjos that I don’t play often.



I am asking $6,000 OBO for the banjo (Frank Neat charged me $1,400 to make the neck back in 2018).



I am selling my: 1) 1927 Gibson TB-3 no hole conversion (with an Arthur Hatfield neck), 2) 1998 Gibson Earl Scruggs 49 Classic, 3) 1954 Gibson RB-250 (1st year Gibson manufactured a Mastertone after WW2); 4) Hatfield Feud (gold-plated banjo) and (possibly) 5) a Sullivan chrome-plated walnut Mastertone style banjo with a neck from a 1940s walnut neck blank from Frank Neat



Please feel free to write me an email with any questions you have.

Edited by - KD Banjer on 09/14/2025 23:34:34

KD Banjer - Posted - 09/13/2025:  09:05:24

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KD Banjer - Posted - 09/15/2025:  00:00:15

Here is a photo in Frank Neat’s banjo shop of my 1927 TB-4, Frank Neat and I, on the day that I picked up the finished 5 string conversion from Frank. Amazingly, banjo legend JD Crowe was at Frank’s shop sitting and chatting with Frank BOTH on the day that I dropped the TB-4 off, and the day that I picked it up. When I picked up the TB-4, JD Crowe was nice enough to sign a banjo head for me (I’ll share a photo of that banjo head later). I later learned that Frank and JD were very good friends, and Frank would often tweak and work on JD’s Gibson Pre-war flathead.

Frank Neat holding my 1927 TB-4 no-hole conversion in his banjo shop