Featured small 8 string banjo

Call it a banjolin or something else? Can't find any markings on it.

 

Is it @all_fakes who would know about this????

 

Banjolin? They made some odd hybrids in the 20s. Banjo ukes too. The British skiffle groups liked getting hold of them.

 

We call these things Bandolines - basically a mandolin with a banjo body. Get a new skin, bridge and a set of strings and you're set.

 

Not generally called a bandoline, in my experience; banjolin is used, or mandolin-banjo or banjo-mandolin. But yes, strung and tuned like a mandolin. Banjos are pretty easy to repair, does need a bridge and skin head as blooey mentioned; set up is not hard, but can be tricky if you've never worked on a banjo (you likely need shims of various sorts to adjust the neck angle so string height is normal). This appears to have a metal hoop or tone-ring as part of the skin head, and again, that can make installation of a new head tricky if you've never done it before; the skin needs to be stretched around the tone-ring, then tightened into place and tensioned without losing the placement of the ring.
Also at least one of the tensioning hooks is missing; replacements are available, but likely won't match exactly.
No clue as to maker, but likely US made, circa 1900-1920.
British mandolin-banjos of that time tend to use a different style of pot and head, and are not technically banjos at all, by some definitions, though the distinction is hyper-technical.

Here's one of mine, an English one of about that time; note that the neck on this one does not actually attach to the drum, but to a bowl-like wooden-structure which holds the drum:

 

WE just call them Bandolines around here because we're primarily Mandolin folks!

 

PS, also it needs a nut - not hard to make, but more tricky than a guitar nut, especially if you've never made one, due to the spacing for the double strings, and the small size of the slots. You can probably get commercial mandolin nuts though.
In any case, a lot of folks would say that mandolin is already a somewhat high-pitched and annoying instrument, and that making a banjo version just adds insult to injury....and I'd have to agree, that of my eight or nine mandolins the banjolin is about the most annoying.

 

Those folks wouldn't necessarily say that if they heard the electric 5-string I built back in 1982 .....this one:

 

Sweet!
I was of course speaking somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
For gigs I play 1950-era Gibson A-50s, and a luthier-made octave mando for "Americeltic" music; and the occasional 4-string banjo, in octave mando tuning; but I have a real cute 4-string electric, made by a little-known Japanese company, Tombo, that is fun to fool around on. It was sold with a speaker and amp built into the case, and would be worth a pretty penny if I ever get around to renovating the amp.

 

When I built mine, the only option for a 5 string electric IIRC was the Tiny Moore version which was so ugly I just made one for myself instead. This is a direct to mixing board type, made for recording. Under that plate is a modified Hagstrom humbucker and the tailpiece is a modified Fender guitar tailpiece.

I used mine to record my own version of African Soukous guitar stylings.

 

Yes, past options for electric mandos were not good; a lot of them did, and still do, double the strings, a bad idea for electrics.
(Sorry for the thread hijacking, by the way, apologies, Terry)

 

Anything that isn't hysteria about a cold is good

 

Before I built mine, I had an 70's electric Ibanez hollow body that I quite liked.

 

One of my A50s has a DI that works fine on stage - but I've always just recorded acoustically. Would be interested to hear your African Soukous recordings; there was a thread where members could post videos and stuff of theirs; I put up a few youtube things.
We've got lots of members with many varied talents.

 

Prior to the Covid-19 era, the Numero group out of Chicago had licensed my 1980's recordings and were putting together an album release - not sure what's happening in that dept. now, everything is on hold I imagine.