c.1930 Slingerland May-Bell 8" Resonator Banjo Ukulele

This guy stopped by for a short chat and visit... with its owner... and while it was here I did a 10-minute setup on it and got it playing and sounding fit and trim (neck brace adjust, small foam pad for the back of the head, nut and bridge slotting/ajusting). It helped that it was "pretty close" through the door. When its owner told me he had a MayBell banjo uke I expected a 7" maple-construction unit but was nicely surprised to see this rarer 8" rim, resonator-applied guy instead.

It (now) has a good old-timey strong-fundamental tone that might be a bit more suited to vaudeville strumming and clawhammer than George Formby acrobatics but I have to admit I'm a little jealous.

The hardware is all heavy-duty stuff and clearly a cut above the average MayBell... which tend to be on the rugged side, anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion that Regal may have been the builder responsible for most of these Slingerland banjo products but I have no clear way of proving it.

Mahogany is used throughout on this instrument.

Did I mention that I love the strap? Apparently this was sourced from Indian reservation rawhide somewhere out west while on tour.

...and it's so clean!