I bought a new banjo... and it's my first

Kay banjo and resonator

I've just gotten a very special banjo: it's an old Kay banjo, a five-string with a mahogany neck and a rosewood fingerboard.

Kay head--back

The head is probably some kind of plastic although it looks like skin--not likely a skin head would be this tight and would last this long. It's got a resonator on it, but I've taken it off--I want the open back sound to it.

Back of Kay banjo

Here's a picture from the back. You can see the nice flame pattern in the neck.

Kay peghead



Kay peghead--back

The pegs are metal and solid. They're rather unusual, as most of the straight-through pegs you find have some kind of plastic knob on 'em. Finding a Kay banjo with this particular feature has been something of a challenge, as most of them have the ivory-colored plastic.

Okay, it looks nice, it's in really good condition, and it's sturdy (although I do have to make some adjustments to the neck to get it just perfect), but what makes this banjo really special? Easy: this is the make and model of banjo that I started playing on, lo! these many moons ago, in 1971. I bought it from a very nice man through eBay and it just came today. Just pulling it out of the box and looking at it brought back a million memories of being in high school in Tucson and learning to play banjo and guitar.

There's nothing really special about this banjo of itself. It's like any of thousands of other low-end basic banjos. But save for a missing decal at the top of the peghead, it's the spitting image of the one I had. Even better, when I got it strung up with new strings, the tone was the same as the one I used to have Way Back When! It's a slightly different tone from any of my other banjos (this one's number #5 in the house) and I recall walking around Tucson, playing the banjo and singing songs. Gawd, I just well up with happiness at recovering a part of my youth. {deep and happy sigh}

I bought a new banjo... and it's my first