I've owned this Mayfair for several years. Bought it on ebay. It didn't have a head and still had the old friction tuners. I went to Bob Smakula for the head and planetary tuners and to my ears, it sounds really good. A few years later I bought a '27 Bacon & Day Silverbell that sounded great and played pretty easily, but not as easy as the Epi. The old Mayfair tenor just fits/suits me better. The Silverbell was a lot heavier. I thinned the herd a while ago and wound up selling the Silverbell. Anyone here have experience with and info on the Mayfair. Oh, almost forgot. I have a Fults tailpiece on the Epi.
In the book, "Epiphone, The House of Stathopoulo", The Mayfair is advertised as a mid-priced student, junior model for $50 in the 1927 catalog. (Just for fun, you might check out some Inflation Calculator websites to see how that $$ translates to 2024).
BTW, Your tenor should be an excellent player, since the Epiphones from this period had a lot of integrity in their quality control.
Edited by - tdennis on 09/15/2024 16:11:16
I can contribute just a little info.
The Mayfair was available from 1927 to circa 1935. While it was not part of their professional line, it is likely to be a very well made instrument.
Epiphone was an independent company at that time. The early to mid 1930's was perhaps their best period.
For price comparison, $50 in 1927 would have bought a Martin 000-18, and an extra $10 would have bought a rosewood 00-21. A new Gibson TB-11 cost $50 in the early 1930s.
I've got one of those 1920-30's Epiphone Mayfairs....solid built banjo, very Gibsonesque in construction.
The banjo was given to me by an older neighbor lady for doing yard work and mowing her yard, Summer 1971. I was 13 yr old. I was listening to Flatt & Scruggs on a portable cassette player, where I'd recorded the cassette tape by holding the microphone in front of my record players speaker ! She heard the music, asked me "You like banjo music ? I' ve got something for you" then gave me the Epi Mayfair.
My dad got home from work that evening, looked at the banjo, and was convinced the old neighbor lady was confused, didn't mean to give it to me.
Me, my dad, and the banjo walked up the street to her house, where the lady proceeded to chew my dad out for daring to question her about giving me the banjo!
First banjo I ever owned, still got it. My dad, uncle and a couple older cousins picked Bluegrass guitar, mandolin, and fiddle, back in those days. My uncle tuned that tenor Mayfair to DGBD and i taught myself to flat-pick Wildwood Flower, I'll Fly Away, and a couple other tunes. Good sounding banjo.
Over the years, I've thought about getting a 5 string neck built for it, never did, now this thread is making me think about that again.......
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