1924 Bacon Peerless Tenor Banjo

This banjo was a transfer station ("dump") find for its current owner. It arrived with the new head in place, a number of old and unsuccessful repairs, and a need to get spruced-up lest its irritable ghost haunt the living with ethereal Dixieland for the rest of time.

The "Peerless" model was a nicer-grade step between the plain-Jane Style C model and the fancier Style B with its "donut" or "Bacophone" tonering. It's basically a Style C with an added Vega Little Wonder-style hoop-in-sleeve tonering. Unsurprisingly, it sounds a lot like a Little Wonder, too -- clean and to the point but with a bit of extra snap and a sweet, lingering sustain.

I went through it for the owner who's going to be playing it in "Chicago" DGBE tuning and repairs included regluing a section of fretboard, a dowel reglue, reinforcement of the neck joint via some hidden bolts, some geared tuners for the headstock (with parts-bin cream buttons), a new bridge, cleaning, and setup. It's now playing spot-on and it has a quite-short scale length which makes it handle fast.

When this came in it had a same-period Vega "pie" resonator with the triangular sections fit to the back. Unfortunately, it doesn't really fit the instrument and I found it a little chancy to attempt reinstalling it because I was worried about blowing-out the sidewalls.