1930 TB2 conversion NMC

[Mandoplumb]

Just saw in this classified a TB 2 Gibson conversion. Neck is not Gibson, tone ring is not Gibson, doubt if bridge or head is Gibson, reminds me of the story of stone soup. If some one makes a mandolin and puts Gibson on the peg head we condemn the practice. What is the difference really.

[Jeff Mando]

Some of the banjo experts will chime in, so to speak, but basically there is a lot more latitude given in the banjo world, vs mandolin world. Most sales will include the original tenor or plectrum neck as provenance.

[Ivan Kelsall]

The majority of TB conversions have a neck made by 'another' maker. I only ever saw one TB conversion with a genuine Gibson neck on it.It was a pre-war TB-6 & had been ordered that way,with a Tenor & 5-string neck. When i saw it,it was sporting the 5-string neck but had the Tenor neck with it. It was for sale at the Elderly Instrument stall at the IBMA festival in 1992.

In a 'conversion',i can accept a neck as being non-original,but not the tone ring. In a Gibson banjo,it was the tone ring that gave them the 'Mastertone' name. To simply have the wooden pot,resonator flange,resonator,tension hoop & hooks,doesn't make it a 'conversion' for me. To me it's a 'bitsa' - bitsa this,bitsa that,bitsa 'tother !!. However - that doesn't mean it won't be a terrific banjo,just not a true 'conversion'. Usually a 'conversion' from TB to 5-string means that the 5-string neck is a replacement for the TB neck,everything else is original, & even the stamped Gibson serial #s should match on each part.

From Jeff Mando - "...there is a lot more latitude .." Maybe not as much as you'd think Jeff,although it's a good point.
Replacing the original tone ring is a bit of a ''no no''. In mandolin terms it's a bit like having the original Gibson neck & replacing the whole body with A.N.Other build,
Ivan

[allenhopkins]

Ivan K's got some good insights. My "best" banjo is a "ball-bearing" Mastertone GB-3 (guitar banjo), with a "diamonds and squares" five-string neck made by a local luthier. He put a "Gibson" logo on the headstock although that part of the instrument isn't Gibson-made.

Gibson Co. would probably frown on another builder using their trademarked name, but in the world of conversions, it's pretty common practice. Forty years ago, a bunch of F-2's and F-4's were "converted" to F-5's by installing new tops and long raised necks (a pretty deplorable thing to do, IMHO, to some lovely Gibson oval-holes). The new headstocks invariably were inlaid with "The Gibson" logos.

So there's a somewhat indistinct line, between building an instrument from scratch and labeling it "Gibson," and taking an indeterminate mixture of Gibson-made and non-Gibson-made components, putting them together, and labeling the result "Gibson." The first is pretty much a no-no, the second is generally considered acceptable.

What if it's just the banjo shell, with a new tone ring, neck, resonator, tuners, tailpiece, etc.? What if installing the new tone ring meant that the shell had to be re-cut to fit it? There's not an enforceable rule of which I'm aware, but clearly, at some point, calling the end product a Gibson is quite a stretch.

[dwc]

It is the classical "Ship of Theseus" paradox. How many planks in ship can you replace before it is no longer the original ship? How many pieces of a Gibson banjo can you replace before it is no longer a Gibson? I have heard banjo players say that there are three times as many "pre war Gibson banjos" today than when they were produced.

[allenhopkins]

"Yeah, this is the axe Abe Lincoln used. 'Course, it's had four heads and seven handles since then..."