1920s Gretsch Openback Tenor Banjo

While it has no branding, banjos of this style (with the little "volute" at the back of the headstock and the weird circular inlay in the face of the headstock and that odd, almost SS Stewart shape) were made by Gretsch from the 1910s through the early 1930s. They're often branded Clarophone and the like when they pop-up on eBay and whatnot.

I've known this one for a while and through several owners and now it's thankfully in the hands of my uke-loving pal Claire who I hope will get a lot of use out of it! It's currently strung like a "normal" high-G ukulele except with steel strings, so the tuning is a re-entrant GCEA using gauges 10, 16, 12, 9 low to high.

This banjo has a "Little Wonder"-style tonering -- a brass hoop encased in a nickel-silver-plated sleeve. It gives a bright, poppy, clean sound to the instrument with the Remo Renaissance head stretched on it. This guy is also loud despite its being a short-scale instrument.

The neck is multi-piece maple with an ebonized-maple fretboard and the rim is multi-ply maple. Someone installed a decent set of 4:1 geared pegs on this at some point and I gave this a fresh fret level/dress and compensated an old bridge for it before handing it off.