I am not much of a metal detectorist, but I am a beginning collector of antique banjos and have been making simple gourd banjos. 4 are antique, the one in the middle dates to around the mid-late 1870s. two of the antique banjos are still under restoration.
Great collection! I imagine you play some of them, do you have any recordings of you using any of 'em? I'm a sucker for old-school Bluegrass so the humble Banjo is close to my heart, thanks for sharing!
Great collection! I imagine you play some of them, do you have any recordings of you using any of 'em? I'm a sucker for old-school Bluegrass so the humble Banjo is close to my heart, thanks for sharing!
I do play all of them, I actually have a YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfFmMfQzwUd1jWhzJctQNwQ ) if you want to check it out. I don't actually play bluegrass (1940-present), I mostly play much earlier (1830s-1930s) music in a few different styles, one is stroke style which is the one of the earliest known styles, possibly dating back as far as the 1700s, the banjo ( which were gourd bodied instruments at the time,) was almost completely played by African-American slaves and former-slaves until around the 1830s when a Irish-American man named Joel Walker Sweeney (he was taught stroke style by former-slaves in his hometown of Appomattox Virginia) introduced it to the minstrel stage and popularized it allover the U.S and Europe. here is a picture of my almost 100% historically accurate, handcrafted, 1700s style, horsehair strung, 4 string, gourd banjo. one banjo you will definitely see on my YouTube channel is a banjo from the 1870s played in stroke style. most of the songs I play predate 1890.
I checked out your channel, it's superb! The sound of your horsehair gourd banjo is absolutely wonderful, it was a true treat to listen to you play it I haven't heard anything quite like it before. Thank you very much for sharing!