Here are some pictures of one of my pre-war banjos. It is a 1924 The Gibson Banjo. It started life as a trapdoor banjo. I converted it from a tenor to a 5 string. This was the first one of 3 of these prewar tenors that I have converted to a modern type 5 string resonator banjo. I made an aluminum plate to go with the original tube on this pot. I also modified a resonator to fit this flange plate. I converted a neck I’d made several years ago and added the style 2 type inlays. These inlays are a little larger than the original ones were because I had to cover up the original dot inlays that were in this neck.  I originally had some information on here as a joke about my grandpa playing this banjo. My grandpa didn’t even play the banjo as far as I know. I wasn’t trying to deceive anyone with that story. It was all in fun. I may try to sell this banjo and I wouldn’t want to misrepresent it in any way. It is an original prewar trapdoor pot that has been converted to a 5 string modern resonator type banjo. It has the original Gibson label and the original tone tube, ball bearing pot. I installed a plastic Weatherking Head and removed the skin head.

    This banjo has a ball bearing 10 1/2 inch pot with a hollow brass tone tube with 59 holes. This particular setup does not have springs under the ball bearings. It has a sweet tone and is a joy to play. I think this pot (even though it is a 10 1/2 inch one) is superior to the ’25 to ’27 models. It is my opinion that the Gibson Company actually hurt the tone and volume on these pots when they welded the extra pieces to the tone tube and put the springs under the ball bearings. After about 3 years of the 11 inch ball bearing pots, they inserted the cast-3 pound tone rings in their Mastertone line and as they say, “The rest is history”. All 3 of these converted prewar banjos have a sweet tone. Unless you have played these conversions you will have a hard time understanding how good they sound. The old wood in the shell apparently contributes a lot to the sound. The lighter weight is a plus to me, too. I painted the neck and resonator with some brown nitrocellulose lacquer. Some of the cheaper models were painted. Anyone who knows these old banjos can tell that the neck and resonator are not original. There weren’t many 5 string banjos made back then and this was made prior to Gibson using the modern resonator.