1920s Bacon Professional FF Tenor Banjo

This old Bacon tenor banjo is of the stylish, double-rim, Bacon FF-style construction. It's got an archtop, hoop-style tonering, and an excellent, punchy, clear sound (despite the FiberSkyn head's dampened tone).

Tim had a whole heck of a lot of work to do on this one -- repairing interior bits of the rim that were loose or missing, repairing a heel that split when tension was applied to the neck brace (the walls were incredibly weak around the dowel), giving it a level/dress of the frets, replacing some missing binding, cleaning, and finally a setup.

It's assumed by most that the Professional FF models with this style of rim were made by Vega for the Bacon brand. Right afterwards, Lange made instruments for them for a while (none with this rim design), and then finally the Groton, CT factory was built in the early '20s and the Bacon instruments of the '20s that most people know (full-on resonators and hardware up the wazoo) were built.

Here are some pics from when Tim was repairing the interior of the rim: