The Wildwood Troubador Openback 5-String Banjo is the flagship model for the Wildwood Frailing and Clawhammer traditional banjo line. Clawhammer and Frailing are traditional banjo styles making a significant comeback. Not only are players exploring older traditional and historic repertoire, but new modern music is being created regularly outside of the old-time and bluegrass contexts. The banjo can work extremely well with a voice an an expressive device.
Bluegrass
Here we’re looking at a wonderfully preserved Gibson RB-18 Mastertone ‘Top Tension’ 5-string banjo, with its gold plating unworn and the finish lightly checked from age. From the serial number, it appears to have been produced during June of 1996. The number breaks down as ‘RB’ for Regular Banjo – i.e. 5-string – ’18’ for the style, followed by two digits for the year (96) and two for the month (06). The last group of digits, a single number 7 in this case, is the production number for that model in that date period.
We’ve just taken delivery of a brand new, new model National Resophonic T-14 Cutaway Tricone in a new finish – Weathered Steel. The official model number is ‘T-14WS’, and it’s a slim, steel bodied, three cone resophonic guitar with a 14-fret neck. And at under eight pounds, it weighs less than many solid body electrics! The T-14 Cutaway Tricone is full-scale guitar, at 25.66 inches. This requires a bit more tension on the strings and the cones, which can result in increased volume.
We’ve received a brand-new National Reso-Phonic Pioneer RP1 semi-hollow electric in a fabulous Chipped Ivory finish! These are great guitars with unmistakable tone and the solid build quality expected from a National Reso-Phonic guitar. The neck is maple with ebony fingerboard, and the body is semi-hollow finished steel. The Lollar P-90 in the neck position provides a warm, fat tone and the piezo element in the bridge accurately reproduces the resonator tone. Active circuity rounds it out.
The Regal Dobro Resophonic Guitar Model 37, built in Chicago during 1935 has been functionally restored by Grant MacNeill. This guitar is now both fully playable and an interesting historical example of American musical instrument production. Regal had a long history, beginning in 1896 as a brand of the Emil Wulschner Music Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. Emil died in 1900 and the Regal name and manufacturing stock was sold to Lyon and Healy in 1904. By 1908, production was moved to Chicago, Illinois under the name of the Regal Musical Instrument Company.
This instrument has sold
MORE →The Republic Highway 61 has a single cone resonator, 12 inch wide body – around the size of a Les Paul, and has a 22 inch scale length with 1 13/16 inch nut width. The body sports lattice soundholes like those on a Tricone model, so there’s lots of space for air to move. These sound good, and the smaller size makes them a lot of fun, and easier to play.