1925 Gibson TB-5 Mastertone Resonator Tenor Banjo

It's hard not to be bowled-over by a high-end Gibson banjo of any sort. This TB-5 is drop-dead gorgeous (and restrained) in its trim, has all the right features, is early in the game, plays bang-on, and has oodles of volume and projection. It's like having an amp sitting in your lap when you're playing it.

It has an archtop-style (holed) tonering, gold-plated (and engraved) hardware throughout, rainbow-style celluloid binding at the rim and resonator, and multicolored purfling/binding at the neck and resonator as well. The pearl inlay in the neck is spiffy but not over-the-top and it has the late-1925 Mastertone "block" inlay down towards the bottom of the fretboard rather than Mastertone at the headstock.

We all wondered who's represented on the truss rod cover -- Joe Oley? Joe Clay? -- if any of you know more, let me know. There are census records from 1940 for a pair of Joe Oleys, both in the midwest, and one of them would have been around 40 when this was made and lived close-enough to Kalamazoo that he might have had it ordered special and picked it up.