Long ago, a banjo picker living in San Diego rescued a discarded banjo from a dumpster. Dan preserved the abandoned 5-stringer and transported it to the Heartland when he relocated to Missouri decades later.

Years past by, and Dan joined our G&F bluegrass band. He gave the forlorn instrument to the BRC founder who had just opened a basement banjo repair shop.  Although it was otherwise unmarked, a patent date of Nov. 19, 1901 on the `No Knot` tailpiece confirmed that the instrument was manufactured over a century ago.

Rather than dress up the wayfaring banjo to become a permanent decorative wall hanging, the 5-stringer was refitted into playing condition and submitted to the three young sons of one of our fiddlers for field testing. The kids happily experimented with the instrument and loved telling the “dumpster” story to family friends.

Shared among this trio of active siblings, the restored 5-stringer held up favorably, and it was deemed sturdy enough to be gifted to the BRC founder`s grandson in Texas where it resides today.

Dan has since retired from the G&F band and is much missed, but his son Terry has joined us adding masterfully nuanced  guitar work to the band`s repertoire.

How many vintage banjos have been fated to a trash bin and vanished forever?

Not infrequently, musicians will drop-off old dusty mystery banjos for study and/or comments at the BRC, and sometimes the instruments are left there forever.  An antique “Conservatory” 4-stringer recently appeared in our shop featuring a peg head surfaced with so-called pearloid.

This primitive plastic was first synthesized in the late 1860`s by swirling pieces of celluloid (nitrocellulose) in a solvent and letting it cure into a solid mimicking mother of pearl. The material was first used to make attractive ivory-like knife handles in the 1870`s, and by the 1920`s it decorated drum rims.  Gibson began using it to inexpensively ornament guitars in the 1930`s. Since then, the glimmering imitation pearl has earned the waggish title “mother of toilet seat” and is also known by the acronym MOTS.

Not too long ago, an otherwise unmarked 5-stringer with a brass “Puritan” plaque at the base of the fretboard was left-off at the BRC for an estimation of its date of manufacture.

The banjo proved to be built circa 1895 as confirmed by a search in the “Encyclopedia of American Fretted Instruments, pre-Civil War to WW 2”  on the <mugwumps.com> website. This impressive anthology of over 1800 stringed instrument builders and their brand names was a work-of-love by the late Mike Holmes, an archivist of folk music instruments.

At a recent Farmer`s Market surrounded by flame-colored autumnal foliage, a plucky trio of Bluegrass musicians bravely huddle-up in late Fall chilly temperatures to entertain shoppers with archival, if not ancient, old time music. Tips went to the Children’s Hospital.