Ervin Somogyi carved and voiced wood 11" banjo tops (you read right) - 5 available (from originally 15 - #s 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 sold since posting). $80 each of the final five shipped to CONUS addresses - $350 for the lot. If you're a repeat buyer can do $70 each/ $300 for the lot. Local pickup available in Austin Texas 78745. [banjo NFS!]

I've marked up pics of each (of the braced side if applicable) up to the posting limit of the ad - lmk which one/s by number you're interested in - or finding out more about them.

A one off opportunity for someone interested in carrying the torch on this hybrid luthiery-banjo experiment by their own lights - or just acquiring a unique artifact from the Somogyi workshop.

Please ask any questions you have.

mid-aughts lo gordon of cedar mountain banjos built a custom commission woodtop openback fretless banjo for me with a 7 string layout - effectively a 5 string banjo with the bottom strings doublecoursed - modeled after a ca. 1900 lyon & healy i kopped from bernunzio ca. 2005. (there are feedback loops of backstory here).

instead of carving and gluing a single wood top to the rim - lo proposed (and executed) securing the wood top with traditional hardware - so that someone down the road could carve new tops with different woods, bracing, etc. to experiment and land on something special. the banjo is/was amazing - but the mahogany wood top he carved was not very musical, thick and simply braced (lo was a banjomaker, after all, and also for the reasons you instantly would estimate).

ca. 2010 on a lark i emailed ervin somogyi - who literally wrote the book on modern guitar tops - with a quixotic pitch if he'd be interested in carving a top to see what an intentionally designed energetic surface would yield on this banjo - even w/ the instrument's inherent constraints. i'm to this day still surprised he replied yes (words were "sounds interesting as all get out").

with such an off-piste project, we permitted this project would move at a pace the time between bona fide guitar making allowed, and index for simplicity and budget (~i didn’t pay $40K for these). and through ervin's curiosity, the project expanded in scope over years and episodic phone conversations between us - in 2023 ervin delivered 15 tops -each with a subtly different bracing pattern, or wood, or surface shaping and contour, or thicknessing take - fully realizing lo's idea of multiple experimentation options with the "swap top" concept. you'll recognize some guitar bracing types throughout the pics. ervin personally voiced each top, though based on occasional encounters with some of his apprentices over the years, i've discovered he may have used the woodtop project as a way of training some of his apprentices on different guitar topology approaches or bracing. (e.g., somogyi voiced, but, say, michel aboudib glued bracing). n.b. he also had a new top hoop machined for better fit specifically for the wood discs (though the method still uses the brackets of the original setup) - note pic. there are multiple options to fit the ~11" banjo rim setups to explore. in the spirit of its experimentation these tops are wood and glue, no finish applied.

i've explored how most of these tops sound as a frailer's proposition. now ca. 2025 i've decided to retrofit the lo gordon banjo to a trad banjo setup after all - and considered working with a luthier or banjomaker to create a new banjo for the wood tops, perhaps exploring another "swap top" approach - and having a new banjo built and designed around solving and most optimally activating that collection of somogy tops, now that they are in the world. alas sailing through a season of definitive life happens, and jettisoning the cargo hold of "i'll get around to it" claims on my future self.

so out to the aftermarket wild these go.

i'm not audio-auditioning each top for the listing, have to snap the chalkline somewhere building out this listing - though for a proof of life sound clip of the #15 top in a frailed j.j. cale-ish mode go here and check out.

soundcloud.com/branyoner/somogyi-top-demo

I received no certificates of authenticity or the like -this was a catch as catch can project with its own logic of presence - but can share with buyers the email record between ervin and myself.

This ad will automatically expire 8/7/2025 8:28:17 AM unless updated before that date. To keep the system current, ads expire if not updated for more than 60 days.