blindboygrunt Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 Banjo is a haughton melody major , 1920 Mandolin is a Stella . made in USA. No more info. Anyone know anything about these pieces? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 Anything at all? They belong to a friends father. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Anything at all? They belong to a friends father. Try putting this into the Gibson Original Instruments forum. Tom Barnwell is probably the only one here who knows much about banjos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 Thanks nick. I forget this forum is just a section of a larger one.. I never look on the others. I don't think there's any value in the instruments , from what little I can glean from Google ... Thanks duke ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorrisrownSal Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Or better yet... on almost anything vintage related, I find the best source of information is UMGF, whether Martin related or not. Oh... and charge your phone. You are running low Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Don't know anything about the banjo. Stella, of course, was one of the brand names used by the Oscar Schmidt Company in NJ. With a better picture of the label you could narrow down the year of build on it. In 1939 the company was acquired by Harmony along with the brand names Stella, Sovereign and La Scala so the names lived on into the 1970s. Schmidt's guitars are highly sought after because they were very often the guitar of choice of the pre-War blues players, the most famous being Leadbelly's jumbo 12 string. But in general everything Schmidt turned out was well built and sounded pretty good because his instruments were built lighter than what his competitors offered. On Schmidt instruments, the guy to go to is Neil Harpe. And he does hang out at the UMGF. So if you post there chances are he will chime in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 Thanks zomby. Appreciate it. Sal , my battery has been running low for years. https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/19226/lot/20/ The banjo mandolin , banjolin?? Is the same as this one ^ But eric didn't play it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpbiii Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 Here is some history of the maker -- British -- from here http://www.whitetreeaz.com/vintage/brit2.htm HOUGHTON George Houghton established his Reliance Works in Heaton Street, Birmingham in 1888 and the range of banjos and zither-banjos he made were branded "Reliance." His well made inexpensive range of instruments quickly found favour with dealers and players alike and before long his factory was extended, his staff increased and the name changed to G. Houghton & Sons and production almost wholly devoted to making instruments for other firms to be branded with the vendor's name and/or trademark. Houghton's maintained a stock catalogue of instruments (usually marked with a gold-embossed lion with the initials G. H. & S. underneath) with which many retailers and most of the wholesale houses made up their own catalogues. One of the most popular selling lines of their banjos was the inexpensive instruments labelled "Melody Jo." Besides making, their own stock instruments they would also copy other firms' prototypes for them, to be branded with the latter's name as "makers". In 1962, town-planning development in Birmingham plus staff difficulties finally decided George Houghton (son of the founder) to close down and he moved to London to become associated with John E. Dallas & Sons Ltd. The plant and materials and a few of his key workers he brought from Birmingham was established in a factory-at 12 Gravel Hill, Bexleyheath, Kent, and from that time until he retired in 1965 he made the inexpensive banjos sold under the Dallas label. You find a lot of relatively low end banjo-mandolins and banjo ukes from just before 1920 up to about 1930. We have several British instruments (banjos) from this period, including a couple of 5-strings. We also have a Houghton "The Gem" banjo-mandolin that I bought as a present for my wife when I went to Australia. We basically use it for decoration. I'll see if I can find a picture. Obviously, I don't know much . Here is a discussion on mugwumps. http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=64997#1066584 Ours looks like this. Best, -Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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