Hand Made w/ all Gibson Parts.

     Exc(+) condition. Walnut RB-4 style banjo handmade by Greg Boyd from 100% authentic Gibson parts. We produced several of these banjos, and local players refer to them as a "GB-4".

     That's right... in the early 1990's we were very fortunate to have purchased a regular supply of authentic parts direct from Gibson. We purchased raw resonators (unsanded, unbound, unfinished), raw necks (inlaid by Gibson, but unfinished, unbound, unfretted and not shaped), raw unturned 3-ply rims, Kulesh tone rings, 1-pc flanges, tension hoops, and even this 2-pc Tube & Plate flange on this banjo. There were only a very few of the Tube & Plate flanges to buy, and I am sure it was the very old stock, as they match the late '20's and early '30's flanges and were nothing like the larger tubes on 1970's Gibsons. We had to buy the tuners ourselves, but used same tuners Gibson was using at the time.

     Many people can scoff and say this is not possible... but I was there picking up the armloads of necks, boxes of stacked resonators and rims, writing the checks and loading them into my vehicle.

     All in all we produced only about 20 or so of these banjos using all Gibson parts. This particular banjo was made by me for one of my best friends, Dave Kraus, a great area guitar player and singer, who never "took" to playing banjo. So... while this banjo does have some 16 years of clouding of the nickel, it is essentially hardly played. It does show signs of handling over the years, as I am sure it was taken out of the case for players to enjoy at Dave's famous pickin' sessions, but it has no problems and no significant fret wear.

     Neck was hand-shaped and bound by me, fretted and finished by our staff in our former store. Resonator was bound by me and finished in our store as well.

     There is no label, but there is writing on top of rim, below tonering, that states I made the banjo, and it is signed.

     After sitting for so long, we have replaced the 16-year old strings, polished up the nickel a little, and given the banjo a fresh set-up.

     It sounds great. It has big presence and a growly attack. And... it is essentially a true "Gibson", even though it was not assembled at the Gibson facility.