My next door neighbour stuck his head over the fence today and asked if I knew any thing about Banjo- Mandolins' (the answer was not a lot!), he then showed me this 13" Melody Major still in its' original case, he said his mother bought it for him new when he was 9 yrs old, so it is circa 1945, after Google searching, about all I found was that is was made in England by G Houghton & Sons.Any help from the knowledgeable people on this site re: value, additional history, or anything else about this instrument would be appreciated.I did notice on Google that a 1920's model old for US$ 3,904 (AU$ 5,019) inc. premium, but the fact it was owned by Eric Clapton probably accounts for the majority of the selling price.
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Thanks for the interest guys, I will check out the Smithsonian site 'CTBR', I did replace the 2 broken high strings with .009 PS (the lightest strings I have), but I'm not sure of the gauges of the other strings, when trying to tune it, I was not able to get the 2 low strings tuned to G because I was worried about the tension that was needed, and possibly doing some damage, they do appear to "me" to be too heavy a gauge (they look and measure abt .040), although the owner says he thinks they are the original strings, I'm presently waiting on a delivery of strings from Mr Gitty which will have a couple of the gauges I need to replace the lot with either light or medium gauge strings.
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Thanks for the interest guys, I will check out the Smithsonian site 'CTBR', I did replace the 2 broken high strings with .009 PS (the lightest strings I have), but I'm not sure of the gauges of the other strings, when trying to tune it, I was not able to get the 2 low strings tuned to G because I was worried about the tension that was needed, and possibly doing some damage, they do appear to "me" to be too heavy a gauge (they look and measure abt .040), although the owner says he thinks they are the original strings, I'm presently waiting on a delivery of strings from Mr Gitty which will have a couple of the gauges I need to replace the lot with either light or medium gauge strings.
http://www.si.edu/Search/Index/default/1?q=
Tons of info for ya! The Smithsonian is a wonderful place to search for old or unusual instruments.
Great old mando- banjo. Clean it up and put new strings on it?
vintage yumyums