I am aware of a number of places which deal in Pre-war Gibson conversions and recently found out about Florentine Banjo Boys website.
I know of Elderly, Carter Vintage, Greg Boyd and Florentine but are there any more dealers with websites I can browse?
6 Comments |
 | Lester Crowe says:
11/14/2014 2:42:20 AM
I just started a website mastertone.org along with fellow Banjohangout member Saltcreek (Tony Arcuri). We both have several pre-wars and will occasionally list one on the website. Please put us on your list.
Thanks,
Lester Crowe
|
 | hsjim says:
11/14/2014 9:42:57 AM
Check out Jim Mills site.
|
 | Chris Cooper says:
11/15/2014 1:19:59 PM
Thanks Guys,
Lester, Congrats on your website, I will keep my eye on your stock.
I am very interested in making the trip over to Raleigh NC to see Mr Mills with regard to buying one of his conversions. Has anyone bought from Jim?
|
 | crubins says:
11/22/2014 1:47:55 PM
Extremely pleased with my 1930 former guitar banjo refitted with Frank Neat 5-string neck by Jim. Highly recommend him. The showroom is a bucket list experience.
|
 | BuckM says:
2/28/2015 11:07:48 PM
There are several more I've run across.
Florentinebanjoboys has the biggest stock I've run across.
Next biggest prewar collection for sale is probably turtlehillbanjo.com. They don't post the prices, but the one I inquired about was not unreasonable.
Greg Earnest has an extremely informative website that everybody needs to study for the fundamentals of models, changes and so on. He occasionally offers some prewars for sale.
earnestbanjo.com/prewar_gibson..._sale.htm
vintage-instruments.com has an original RB-3 that used to belong to Dock Boggs and Mike Seeger, in addition to many other banjos.
billcampbanjos.com has a couple TB5s, converted or not.
I bought a TB-5 conversion from vintageinstruments.com in California and he's sold prewar Mastertones in the past. There's an unconverted TB-4 there right now.
Bernunzio.com has a TB-5 conversion and has featured other prewars in the past.
Steve Huber and Jim Spann occasionally have an old-timer for sale. huberbanjos.com
vintage-beauty.com in Prague (!) has several prewar converts now including a rare TB-7.
A few months ago there were half a dozen prewar Mastertones including some really rare ones at steveswanguitars.com/guitars/banjos/ I went over and played all the conversions. Steve Swan tells me he eventually sent most of them back to the consignor but you could inquire and maybe track them down. He specializes in string basses and Dreadnaughts.
Mandolin Brothers on Staten Island occasionally gets good prewar Mastertones in for resale. See their 5-string resonator banjo section at mandoweb.com
Naturally don't overlook banjobuyers.com right here at the hangout. Prewars pop up pretty frequently.
Also keep an eye on gbase.com. Search on "Gibson banjo" or narrow it down by year. Lots of dealers advertise there and you'll probably find some that only occasionally get an old-timer in stock. I haven't tried but it looks like you may be able to sign up for automatic notification when a new listing comes in for a category you're watching.
Have fun looking and good luck buying!
|
| BuckM says:
2/28/2015 11:22:00 PM
Oops, how could I forget George Gruhn in Nashville -- guitars.com/banjos Gruhn virtually always has old-timers in stock and lists the asking price. Gruhn also does evaluations of old instruments including banjos so he hears about an awful lot of instruments.
|
Post a Comment
|
You must be logged in and a member of this group to post a comment.
|
