This is what the banjo community calls a bottle cap banjo because of the look of the flange around the head. Typically the tone ring is intergraded into the body. It's most likely from the mid 70's. The tone is kinda tinny. They are a beginner banjo mostly used to get you started in picking.

Also, the identical banjo may be found with many different brand names. If a distributor orders a large enough batch, they can get the branded however they choose. Some may indeed be branded "Washburn", but they're no different from others that bear different names.

That said, a really good setup person (like Mike Munford, to whom I send a lot of my students) can get one of these playing and sounding surprisingly good.

Bottle cap........

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Originally posted by woodchips

This is what the banjo community calls a bottle cap banjo because of the look of the flange around the head. Typically the tone ring is intergraded into the body. It's most likely from the mid 70's. The tone is kinda tinny. They are a beginner banjo mostly used to get you started in picking.

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Thank you for your reply. I should've put "bottle cap" in my original request, as I knew that. I did not know that the tone ring is integrated. I currently play a Deering Americana with a copper resonator that sounds delightful. I don't think, by your description, that this one could hold a match to it.

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Originally posted by Ira Gitlin

Also, the identical banjo may be found with many different brand names. If a distributor orders a large enough batch, they can get the branded however they choose. Some may indeed be branded "Washburn", but they're no different from others that bear different names.

That said, a really good setup person (like Mike Munford, to whom I send a lot of my students) can get one of these playing and sounding surprisingly good.

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Thank you for your reply. I did see many similar, but only Washburn (if I remember correctly) had a similarly shaped headstock. I thought it might be fun to play, but I don't think it can even match my current banjo... Which would make it not fun to play. 

>>I currently play a Deering Americana with a copper resonator that sounds delightful. I don't think, by your description, that this one could hold a match to it.<<

Right. The least expensive Deering Banjo is going to be above this one in quality. That being said, these banjos have started many folks on their banjo playing journey even if they are scrapped pretty soon along the trail.

Bobby

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Originally posted by BobbyE

>>I currently play a Deering Americana with a copper resonator that sounds delightful. I don't think, by your description, that this one could hold a match to it.<<

Right. The least expensive Deering Banjo is going to be above this one in quality. That being said, these banjos have started many folks on their banjo playing journey even if they are scrapped pretty soon along the trail.

Bobby

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Thanks. By the looks of the skin on this one, it got scrapped as soon as the 4th string broke. 

Asian made. "Back in the day" in the 1960s/70s these were made in Japan. When manufacturing in Japan got too expensive, these were made in Korea. Same story. Now they are/have been made in China.

Based on the American eagle decal on the back, I'd guess this might be from "around" 1976 when lots of banjo had eagles decalled onto them.  Even Gibson did one.

An adequate banjo for a rank novice.

LOL. Mine was very similar, same headstock, shiny black all over, same eagle decal. Mine had a "Made in Korea" sticker on it.

I bought it for $50 in 1977 ($282 today). After a couple years, I bought a Washburn B16 and took "The Chicken Banjo" offshore and kept it in a locker. Spent a year playing it every day (out of the Scruggs book), often for hours (I was the helicopter mechanic and mine ran like a Swiss watch, so little else to do).

Yah, it was cheap crap and sounded terrible. It still taught me how to play.

Those are worth $50- $200 depending on who’s bidding against you on the Goodwill auction. I’ve fixed up a number of them to give away. They are a BLAST to work on, and learn banjo set up. Setting action with the single co-rod and slotted rim hole is genius. Its also one of the applications where a fiberskin head can really sound pretty good. Just be careful, sometimes they are slightly smaller than 11”.

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Originally posted by Spudwheat

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Originally posted by woodchips

Typically the tone ring is intergraded into the body. 

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I did not know that the tone ring is integrated. 

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Im not sure these don't have integrated tone rings. The better aluminium rims, such as those from Saga and Gariepy, do have integrated tone rings but these cheap ones are just a plain rim of aluminium. However I could be wrong. The boittlecaps I've seen certainly don't.

I meant to add perhaps in the Japanese days they did put in an integrated tone ring.

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Originally posted by Spudwheat
I did not know that the tone ring is integrated. 

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The flange -- the part that creates the bottlecap look -- is integrated. I wouldn't say the tone ring is integrated, because this banjo does not technically have one. The head bears directly on the rim, which happens to be aluminum instead of wood. Does that make the rim an aluminum tone ring or is it just an aluminum rim? I think the latter.

But more to the point, and your earlier question: Bottle cap banjos of any era (they're still made today) are only cheap junk if their fretboards are inaccurate so they don't intonate correctly and if the banjos can't be setup for playable string height (action) and good head tension. Plus the hooks and nuts should hold tension for many months at a time and the tuning gears should work easily and hold tuning for reasonable length playing session. I think this is the minimum amount amount of functionality a banjo must deliver to not be considered junk. If the banjo doesn't terrible, that's a plus.

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Originally posted by Spudwheat
 I currently play a Deering Americana with a copper resonator that sounds delightful.

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What is this? I looked up "Deering Americana copper" and foound the Americanan with hand-rubbed bronze finish hardware. Nothing about a resonator.

I would expect a Goodtime Americana to sound better than an aluminum bottlecap.

As to the brand… Many of the pre-war brand names, often from excellent banjo lines, were picked up by modern distributors and makers when trademarks lapsed or manufacturers went under. Washburn, a Lyon & Healey brand, was one such. Today Deering owns “Vega” and Gold Tone owns “Mastertone.” Most of the other old brand names and trademarks are owned/used by distributors who have no factories but buy mass-produced cheap instruments from Asia (typically China these days) and slap whatever name on a standard production model that may be sold by different distributors with different brands, some of which are new and some old. With notable exceptions (e.g. RK) the name on the peghead denotes nothing unique.

I meant to say: If the banjo doesn't sound terrible that's a plus.

@Old Hickory Thanks for your comments. I believe we're completely aligned on the bottle cap banjo. I had thought about picking it up, stringing it and trying it out, but I think this will just lead to frustration.

Regarding that Deering Americana with a copper resonator. This resonator is supposedly off of an antique Bacon-Peerless that had been parted out. It is definitely copper, I have never seen one like this. It is nearly an exact fit for that 12" rim, coming in at 12.25" it leaves just enough to slide on like a glove.

I really wanted to try it, so I modified the truss rod of the Deering without damaging it. I built a wood bracket to slide on to the metal rod. What you see in the photo is no-skid (that you put under rugs) to keep it from rotating around when you put the resonator on. I made a custom fit on each end, letting a little friction on the rim help hold it in place. It is a center screw resonator, so that meant that I could try it without damaging my banjo. (In the fourth photo, there's a tiny black streak, I thought "What is that?". It's just part of the wood grain.)

I hope you enjoyed this explanation. She sounds really sweet, the notes ring out so lovely. A worthy experiment. :-) Cheers!

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Originally posted by trapdoor2

LOL. Mine was very similar, same headstock, shiny black all over, same eagle decal. Mine had a "Made in Korea" sticker on it.

I bought it for $50 in 1977 ($282 today). After a couple years, I bought a Washburn B16 and took "The Chicken Banjo" offshore and kept it in a locker. Spent a year playing it every day (out of the Scruggs book), often for hours (I was the helicopter mechanic and mine ran like a Swiss watch, so little else to do).

Yah, it was cheap crap and sounded terrible. It still taught me how to play.

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Being an overseas helicopter mechanic leads me to believe that you might've been in the service. If this is the case, you're lucky you survived the learning curve... Ha ha 

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Originally posted by Spudwheat

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Originally posted by trapdoor2

LOL. Mine was very similar, same headstock, shiny black all over, same eagle decal. Mine had a "Made in Korea" sticker on it.

I bought it for $50 in 1977 ($282 today). After a couple years, I bought a Washburn B16 and took "The Chicken Banjo" offshore and kept it in a locker. Spent a year playing it every day (out of the Scruggs book), often for hours (I was the helicopter mechanic and mine ran like a Swiss watch, so little else to do).

Yah, it was cheap crap and sounded terrible. It still taught me how to play.

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Being an overseas helicopter mechanic leads me to believe that you might've been in the service. If this is the case, you're lucky you survived the learning curve... Ha ha 

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Offshore = Gulf of Mexico...an oil rig. Good fishing too.

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Originally posted by trapdoor2

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Originally posted by Spudwheat

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Originally posted by trapdoor2

LOL. Mine was very similar, same headstock, shiny black all over, same eagle decal. Mine had a "Made in Korea" sticker on it.

I bought it for $50 in 1977 ($282 today). After a couple years, I bought a Washburn B16 and took "The Chicken Banjo" offshore and kept it in a locker. Spent a year playing it every day (out of the Scruggs book), often for hours (I was the helicopter mechanic and mine ran like a Swiss watch, so little else to do).

Yah, it was cheap crap and sounded terrible. It still taught me how to play.

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Being an overseas helicopter mechanic leads me to believe that you might've been in the service. If this is the case, you're lucky you survived the learning curve... Ha ha 

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Offshore = Gulf of Mexico...an oil rig. Good fishing too.

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Today's nomenclature: Offshore = Gulf of America...

You are *really* lucky to have survived the learning curve. Those guys are roughnecks and they couldn't escape! 

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Originally posted by Spudwheat

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Today's nomenclature: Offshore = Gulf of America...

You are *really* lucky to have survived the learning curve. Those guys are roughnecks and they couldn't escape! 

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They treated me like a king. If the 'chopper didn't fly, they had to take the boat: 40min by air vs 8hr by boat. The lead welder even made me a pickin' chair with a music holder. Nice folks, unless you played ping-pong...knives out!

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Originally posted by trapdoor2

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Originally posted by Spudwheat

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Today's nomenclature: Offshore = Gulf of America...

You are *really* lucky to have survived the learning curve. Those guys are roughnecks and they couldn't escape! 

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They treated me like a king. If the 'chopper didn't fly, they had to take the boat: 40min by air vs 8hr by boat. The lead welder even made me a pickin' chair with a music holder. Nice folks, unless you played ping-pong...knives out!

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Nice!

Got it. So the copper resonator came from somewhere else.

As to the fit, I think at least a little gap between the resonator and outside of the rim is desirable. It allows air to move in and out, which I believe contributes to the tuning of the pot. It's also my understanding that a wider gap allows sound to project forward. Have to admit I don't entirely understand the physics of banjo. We have an expert here who does. I think even with a resonator most of the sound we hear comes from the head. But the resonanator and the space between it and the bottom and sides of the rim shape the tone.

That's a really creative solution for mounting that vintage resonator.

IMO, yes a heap of junk.. Worth nothing and will depreciate from there.