I got this banjo in about a month ago and was very pleasantly surprised by its overall condition. It is a Greg Rich Era Gibson Style 3 and is in what I consider excellent original condition. I am listing it now after doing a complete tear-down and set-up. The banjo performs flawlessly and delivers a deep, full, bluegrass sound.

As many of you are aware, the Gibson banjos of this era, 1988-1993, are considered by many to be the most desirable of the re-issue Gibson banjos. People like Greg Rich, Doug Hutchins and others came together at that time in Gibson history, committed to bringing back the excellence in quality, workmanship and focus on what made the pre-war Gibson banjos so good, and recreate those traits in a new instrument. Well they certainly accomplished their goal. Construction, feel, and sound comes as close to the pre-war Gibsons as has yet been achieved in a production instrument.

During the era two tone rings were used in the construction. The Richard Kulesh Sr. ring was the predominant ring used, but Kulesh ran into a porosity problem with his rings in late 1988. Bill Sullivan stepped in and, using Gibson's tone ring formula, provided Gibson with rings until Kulesh could work through his tone ring issues. This banjo, serial number 3-8903-39, has one of the Sullivan rings that Doug Hutchins has verified is correct to this banjo. I've played examples of banjos with both of these ring and they are both among the best you will find.

What doesn't seen to be 100% correct on this banjo is possibly the tailpiece and the armrest. It has a two leg armrest, and the banjo would have come with a single leg armrest, and the nice presto that is on the banjo may be a replacement, but it would have had a presto on it originally. All of the wood, frets, fingerboard, and hardware are in excellent condition with the normal finish checking on the resonator that you find on most old Gibsons.

This banjo is being offered with the original case at $3300. I believe you would spend north of $5000 to get this quality of an instrument in today's market...Bill