Bacon?
My first thought is a Bacon Internal Resonator model banjo. They were made pretty early in Bacon's production before resonators became popular. Several people here might be able to shed better light as to whether I'm on the right track. John Hoft is one of them. Hopefully, he will see this.
It’s pretty heavy, what kind of tone ring is in there?
It’s pretty rough condition but does it have value?
Indeed, Bacon:
How old is it?
That’s the headless horseman model. Fairly rare.
That $125 roughjly inflates to about $4,000 nowadays. But no way you could buy a banjo like that for $4,000 today. The skilled and cheap immigrant labor of the early 20th c. Is long gone.
Bacon Special Grand Concert 5-string banjos were introduced In Oct. 1913 and were manufactured by Rettberg & Lange for Fred. Bacon. Rettberg & Lange continued to make the Special Grand Concert until 1920 when Bacon opened his own factory in Groton Conn. and continued to make the Special Grand Concert in his Groton factory until about 1924. When Rettberg & Lange began making banjos for Fred Bacon in 1912 I believe Bacon started his serial numbers at 1000. I don't have any information about Bacon's serial numbers and dates so can't further pin down a more accurate time frame for your banjo's build date.
Fotoguzzi,
I can’t pin the exact age, but I would say late teens.
In regards to value, that is hard to say. If it were in very good shape, 4,500 to 5,500 would be a reasonable dealer price with original case.
Yours has a great number of issues. Bad, very difficult break to repair on the headstock. All of the pearl inlay has either dropped out or been removed. Some of the parts look to be missing, tail piece ect.
A restoration could be done, but there are very few qualified people who could do it, it would be very expensive and the missing parts and inlays affect the originality which affects the value.
I don’t think it would fetch more than 1,000 at this point.
It is still a very special instrument, and if someone wanted to invest a good deal of $$$ and time, it could be playable once again.
Thanks Alvin.. I’d be really happy to get $1000 for it as is but not holding my breath. I might try eBay.
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