Which says there are no new banjos under $300 worth buying. Which might be the case.

300 dollars is definitely pushing the boundaries of what might be considered a decent banjo in todays dollars, on average. Are banjos bought or sold for that or right around that, give or take a bit? Of course. Get up to about 500 to 600 and yes, there are options that are very decent in that price range.

For a beginner who is just trying to figure out some banjo the Recording King RKOH-05 is just fine. I have one and am quite happy with it for what it is and I am not a beginner.

60's Vega Folk Ranger or Vega Ranger (resonator), nothing comes close to these for the money.

When I started in 1960-61, the $33 Kay I got was the cheapest (and only) available new 5-string. Today’s inflated cost would be $369. So usable new starter banjos have stayed in the same real-cost ballpark for many years.

I recently played the Recording King Dirty Thirties RHOH-06 open back at a weeklong banjo workshop. 18 brackets, Fiberskyn head, no knot tailpiece, and a tone ring. It didn't need much setup. I changed the strings and tweaked the truss rod. I was kind of proud of my $300 banjo among all of the high end and custom banjos. I saw a used RKOH-06 for $289, and a new one goes for $304.50.

The Ibanez B200 and B300 resonator banjos impressed me at one time. They have gone was up in price, with careful shopping a barely used model
could be had for $300. The only difference in the higher price B300 is the resonator material. IIRC, you can make an open back out of these units. The have regular banjo tuners too, though they are friction, they are easy to adjust so that they work. The lower priced Gold Tones are nice also. A good setup helps all of these banjos.

I have a customer who just got an AC. She really likes it. Geoff makes this sound great.

The Alvarez, Kasuga, Conrad, Conqueror, and several other cheapy import Asian banjos run around 500 for used, give or take a hundred. That isn't a bad deal.... I remember when the Rec King RK 35 and RK 36 were about 600 to 650 bucks. They are now over 1000 bucks. Of course inflation is the main culprit in the price increase. As I mentioned before, of course you can get a relatively decent beginner banjo for ? maybe 300 bucks or a bit more - I still maintain that someone should try to spend just a bit more. I NEVER recommend purchasing the bottle cap banjos. Those run 150 to 200 bucks new and as far as I'm concerned are trash and one might as well throw the money away.... As Sonny Osborne said many times - "Buy the best banjo you can find and afford." That's very good advice. The other thought around the question of what you should spend - Buy a 300 dollar banjo, and a year or two down the road, when you decide banjo isn't for you, or you actually take to it and improve to a point you need a better instrument - when you try to sell that banjo or trade it in on your better / more expensive banjo, you simply are not going to be able to give it away. You'll take a HUGE hit on it. Of course, one can argue that you haven't lost too much regardless of WHAT you actually end up getting for it if you sell it, or are allowed for it on a trade in. Now - the other side of this coin is - you pay 1000 dollars, (or more, and actually buy a Good or Great banjo - Gibson, Huber, Stelling, Hawthorne, Yates, Bales, Neat, Necville, or whatever - ) you can play that banjo for years. If you have bought a decent but not a "high dollar" banjo, say something in the 1000 dollar range, an intermidiate level banjo) When you go to sell or trade that instrument in - Usually, you will recoup every dime, and probably will make money on it. In other words, IF you paid 3000 dollars for whatever banjo, when you sell it 4 or 5 years down the road, you may very likely be able to sell it for at least what you paid for it, or quite possibly get 3500 for it.... because the good stuff keeps going up!

Used just makes way too much sense for entry level. Buy something for $100-200 off craigslist or fb marketplace that has at least has a truss rod and a head in good shape, spend like $50-60 at stewmac (if needed to upgrade tuners and bridge) and you likely have something at least on par with an ac-1 plus you’ll get to learn how to set up a banjo yourself.

Every now and then hangout has a used entry level that already had a lot of improvements as well.

Musicians friend had the recording king dirty 30s on a stupid deal of the day for $200 about a month ago. The stock tuners are not great, but that can be addressed without too much investment.

Resale is only a worry if you quit altogether. Always good to have a “travel” banjo or another to lend out to recruit another person to the darkside