Well, it sounds like you are just a beginner in the BAS world. Actually, banjo is not my only thing. I started playing music at 7 and now I'm 53. I play a lot of types of instruments and I own at least one of all but maybe two or three of the 28 different instruments I can play. If I include sound equipment too, my total spent is probably close to 65k. But to be honest, some certain instruments are worth close to 10k and some of them I spent less than $10. I'm still on the hunt though. If I find the right one, I just can't help myself. Anybody looking for something? You know me...buy-sell-trade.

If I could go back in time, take all the money I've spent trying different parts and buying/selling banjos and put it into one banjo I could have something REALLY nice. But I've learned and experienced a lot along the way and wouldn't trade it for that.

My guess is I'm right around that $10k+ mark after 7 years, and my current banjo cost ~$3700. This is the 11th banjo I've owned and the only one I have.

I have too many banjos. But selling is not as easy a buying, so they tend to accumulate. I’ve indulged in a couple of collectibles too. So I’m well past $10k, but I don’t spend money on travel and entertainment, both of which are ephemeral, which banjos are not.

That $10K is long ago and far away.

Gee, I think it's pretty normal for musicians to have more than one instrument and maybe 2 or 3 or more of each.

I have 3 banjos, a dobro, an upright electric bass, a Martin acoustic-electric bass, a mandolin, an autoharp, a piano, a clarinet and a tenor sax. I play all of them. Well, not the clarinet and sax, but I still have them, they're collectibles.

Have I spent more than $10,000? Undoubtedly, and I've enjoyed each one and not interested in selling any of them. I'll leave that chore to my kids after I'm gone.

I am so far past 10K that I'm afraid I'd have a heart attack if I added it all up.

I was in a store that had mostly guitars as a buyer / reseller and I think there must have been 50 plus semi hollow body Gibson style guitars then over 100 fender style guitars and probably 300 plus acoustic guitars. Maybe 10 banjos and most were beginner in the 300-500 dollar range except for the chuck lee tenor which I bought.    When I looked at the Gibson style guitars the prices sort of started at 2500 and went way way up.   One was 26k.  One time I sorted by highest price on reverb and after I scrolled through the ones set at 999999999 which were actually people looking for a specific instrument, there were quite a few in the 75 k range.   The odd thing to me is that my first house was less than that.   I get that it's an investment more than just an instrument but it's still pretty amazing the values.  I know some of the Gibson banjos are valued at those kind of prices.   Pretty amazing.

".... it's pretty normal for musicians to have more than one instrument .... ."

But, but, but, what about [abnormal?] non-musicians?   I guess I'm part of the 10% that didn't pack 'er in, but my three banjos are a l-o-n-g way from 10G.  

I can't recall what happened to a guitar I rescued from a garbage can 50+ years back .... the neck was detached from the body so I ran a bolt through, and in a manner of speaking it was "playable."

Blew past that in the 90's.

Several years - and many instruments - ago I was placing a phone order at Elderly. After giving my customer number the salesperson gasped and said, "Do you want to know how much money you have spent with us?" I told him absolutely not. He said I could have bought a really great car, but I replied that would just be a car, and I have purchased a lot of instruments that made some great music. Most of the instruments I have owned were not really expensive, but I have got a lot of joy and use out of all of them. I think quite a few will be passed on to my granddaughter.

Not yet. Even with (give or take) 10 banjos, 3 acoustic guitars, an upright bass, ukes, a banjolele, two fiddles, and an electric guitar.

Though I love deal hunting and buying fixer-uppers. Nearly half the instruments were unplayable when I got them.

Going to look at another "as is" banjo tomorrow. I get a lot of entertainment out of getting old instruments working again.

In 2005, I bought a banjo for $4600. My wife was telling her mom who said "my god! Is it made of gold?" My wife replied "Actually, it is".

At dinner that night, my wife asked if I planned to sell one of the the 3 banjos I had. I hesitated just 5 seconds. My son quipped "dad's a collector..."

I swear everybody in my family is a comedian.

As of 2025, my herd is 7 banjos.

Uhmmm….let’s put it this way…if I invested it in real estate or solid financials instead of musical instruments for the past 50 years, with returns it would equal probably a nice beach house…

….needless to say, I don’t have a beach house, but I consider it a very fair trade off. Family members don’t come around and stay for weeks on end when I play the banjo.

I surpassed that on one instrument in the 90's ......but the good news is that it is worth about 3 times what I paid for it.

YES

I got bit by the music bug early and started playing guitar at 8 years old… by age 20 I was focused on being a professional musician in some capacity, living in Section 8 (rent controlled low income) housing, making minimum wage selling recording gear for a big box music store chain… and spending every spare penny renting a garage from for $100 a month where I used to record bands…eventually cobbling together a 16 track reel-to-reel recording setup.

And that’s how it went over the years, buying/selling/trading/repairing gear and instruments until family and career goals eventually put better perspective on my spending and future. In retrospect I wish I had invested in Apple stock instead of spending every unaccounted-for
penny on musical equipment!

I bought my first guitar in Mallorca Spain in 1971. I have been that 90% that quit three or four times though, and then picked it up again. This last stint has been a decade, give or take, since I retired and my lack responsibilities have allowed me to prioritize it. My banjo career has only been a couple years and three banjos. I would say that if I had to take the survey today, I would check the $10,000 box, but that would be a guesstimate.

This last ten or twelve years though, it isn't the instruments and gear so much as it is the music festivals, the four hour drives just to jam with people I don't know, the workshops I've attended. When you add it all up, the hotels, the gas, the flights, the food the booze, that's a lot of money. Heck, somehow I even seem to end up in the red every time I do a gig with our group. So that's what's costing me money.

Someone once said:

"A banjo will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no banjos."

If you take instruments (mainly guitars and banjos) I bought in the late Sixties and the Seventies and take their value today, yes, it's easily over ten grand.

And if you take the hundreds of acts I've seen, and the people I've played and jammed with - that's esily worth over ten grand, maybe more than ten times more.