Gibson Mastertone Banjos, the Life, the Lore, the Reality
Sean J. Barry
June 23, 2025
Foreword: The uninitiated might find parts of the following essay confusing primarily because some of the material is arcane and unfamiliar, but even that group should and will soon realize that unlike every other string instrument on the planet, the banjo is a “bolt-together” instrument, assembled from metal and wooden components that are meant to be taken apart easily, interchanged as necessary or desired. Thus, I speak of tone rings, flanges, and necks as though they are merely visiting components possibly soon to be evicted, because they are.
Definitions:
“Mastertone” refers to Gibson banjos that have a heavy brass “Mastertone Tone Ring” that sits atop the wood rim on Gibson Mastertone banjos. Tone ring differences are discussed in the text.
“Prewar” for these purposes always means the years between 1930 and 1943, the last 13 of the so-called “golden years” of Gibson banjo production.
“Pot” is the assembly of the banjo circular components, in a Gibson Mastertone including the wood rim, the tone ring, the tension hoop, the resonator flange, usually the resonator, usually the head, the brackets and nuts, and sometimes the armrest.
“Setup” is defined as judicious alignment and tightening of the metal banjo components, as well as ensuring correct neck relief and bridge placement. Some specialists use accurate measurements such as torque values to ensure even tightening, but others go strictly by “feel,” a skill that results from years of experience. The tonal difference and playability between a banjo in need of professional setup and the same instrument when the setup is complete can be stunning.
Good, I am glad we got that out of the way.
It is not an exaggeration to say that most bluegrass banjo players either play or aspire to play a Gibson “Mastertone” five-string banjo. To refine that statement a bit, most bluegrass banjo players aspire to play a “prewar” Gibson Mastertone banjo that was made in the 1930s, with an original flathead “Mastertone” tone ring and an original five-string banjo neck. The driving reason is that the widely acknowledged founder of modernbluegrass banjo playing, Earl Scruggs, played at least two such banjos for nearly all his career from 1946 until his death in 2012. These were an original five string flathead Gibson RB-75made in 1938 and an original five string flathead Gibson RB “Granada” banjo made in 1934.
Earl acquired the RB-75 from original owner Haze Hall in 1946, and he acquired the 1934 Granada from Don Reno in 1949 (Earl later sold the Haze HallRB-75 to Don). The Granada, which was owned earlier by seminal player Snuffy Jenkins, saw many changes and factory modifications during its lifetime, but the “heart and soul” (tone ring, original wood rim, resonator, and one-piece resonator flange) remained unchanged throughout its life.
Earl produced amazing tone from the RB-75 and the Granada, and his tone production was a distinct part of his music, the runs, the licks, the passages, that quickly became a collective trademark of his playing and soon afterward the foundation of all bluegrass banjo playing. Earl’s playing “attack” accounted for most of that sound, but the inherent tone of his banjos contributed significantly to the sound he produced as well. The 1938 Haze Hall RB-75 was Don Reno’s primary banjo for many years, and it remains in private ownership; Earl’s iconic Granada now resides in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
During the 1930s (until 1937) Gibson and other manufacturers produced mostly “tenor” banjos, with four strings, 19-fret necks, approximately 11-inch diameter pots, strings usually tuned in fifths (C-G-D-A), with various scale lengths. Scale length is the distance from the banjo nut to the bridge (minus some allowance for “compensation”), influenced by neck length and rim diameter, and is a major contributor to the overall banjo tone and response. Players of Dixieland-Jazz music, which was very popular during that era until about 1937, almost exclusively usedtenor banjos in large orchestras because the tone, volume, and voicing of those banjos were ideal for that music in that setting. Some Dixieland players used “plectrum” banjos, which had longer necks than tenor banjos, with four strings tuned C-G-B-D. Tenor and plectrum banjo playing technique usually involvesstrumming with a flat pick, with occasional individual noting. Gibson produced thousands of Mastertone tenor banjos during the late 1920s and the 1930s until the onset of World War II, and during that time they also produced perhaps 150 original five string Mastertone banjos with flathead tone rings, often on special music store order.
Five string (and plectrum) banjos typically have 21 frets which lengthen the neck over the tenor banjo neck, and five-strings have an added fifth string whose tuning machine or peg is distinctively mounted on the side of the neck with a small “nut” adjacent to the fifth fret. The neck narrows in width between the fifth string tuner and the nut andwidens to accommodate the fifth string until the neck meets the rim. Five string banjos are tuned in an unusual fashion, in afourth, a third, and a second ([G] D-G-B-D), somewhat like the four strings of the plectrum banjo. In the five-string banjo the [fifth string] to the left of the low D string to the left of the neckis tuned a fourth higher than the first string on the right side of the neck, a location that gives bluegrass banjo playing much of its drive and energy.
Bluegrass banjo players almost always use finger and thumb picks to play individual notes, no strumming involved. Gibson produced very few five string Mastertone banjos during the 1930s because no widespread musical application then existed for the five-string banjo—bluegrass banjo playing did not appear until about 1945. With only about 150 documented original five string flathead Master tones existing, and tens of thousands of bluegrass banjo players out there for whom such a banjo is the ultimate grail, the problem is obvious–there are nowhere near enough original five string flathead Mastertones to go around. How different the prewar banjo world would now be if the opposite were true!
Most of the tenor, plectrum, and five string banjos Gibson produced during that “Golden Era” were various models of “Mastertones,” as noted above so called because they highlighted heavy brass “tone rings” mounted with tighttolerance atop the interior circular wood rim. The plastic (or formerly calf skin) banjo head sits atop the tone ring, edged by a “tension hoop” which a strong continuous bead at the bottom of the head holds in place. A circular series of brackets and nuts draws the tension hoop and head down tight against the tone ring. The nuts thread onto the end of the brackets where they emerge through holes drilled in a moderately heavy metal “resonator flange,” and the nuts tighten against the bottom face of the flange. The resonator (“back”) of the banjo seats on the resonator flange, held in place by three or four thumbscrews. The resonator must be removed in most Mastertone banjos to enable head tightening (except for the “Top Tension” series discussed later). If the flange and plastic head are in good condition the head can be tightened/torqued significantly and some players experiment carefully to find the tension that yields the desired tone (without splitting the plastic head).
Some 1930-1937 Gibson Mastertone banjos sported the “flathead” version of the Mastertone tone ring, but most were shipped instead with “archtop” tone rings (nearly all the “Top Tension” Gibson Mastertones produced from 1938 through 1941 were shipped with flathead tone rings). The flathead ring, usually drilled on the sloping interior surface with 20 holes, (and no one knows why) allowed the full 11-inch head diameter (and area of 98.5 square inches) to vibrate when played. In contrast, the archtop ring, with an interior wall usually drilled with 40 perpendicular holes (and no one knows why) had an inner raised ridge that effectively reduced the head vibrating diameter by 1.5 inches and the vibrating area by 27.7 square inches to just 70.8 square inches, or 72 per cent of the flathead ring vibrating diameter. That decrease reduced sustain but somewhat increased note clarity. The archtop tone ring was ideal for the tenor banjo in a Dixieland context— notes had great treble clarity but with relatively little bāssiness or depth. The flathead tone ring generated tone with somewhat more depth and sustain, and with characteristic “bāssy” tone and clear overtone distribution that the archtop often lacked.
Within scientific ability to “measure”tone from different instruments the overtone distribution and amplitude differences among tone rings were usually clear enough on an oscilloscope or other sound analyzer, yet even the experienced listener/player might struggle to tell the differenceby ear. That qualification aside, bluegrass players prefer the flathead design overwhelmingly. During the 1950s banjo players sought prewar Gibson Mastertone original flathead five string banjos with great interest, and today a hugely increased number of players seek the same prewar original flathead five string Gibson Mastertone banjos with fervent obsession.
Original five string versions of original prewar Gibson Mastertone flathead banjos are now some of the scarcest and most expensive instruments in the history of banjos. Conversely, until recently, prewar archtop Gibson Mastertone tenor banjos were common and inexpensive by comparison, and with the scarcity of original five string flathead Mastertones, these archtop tenor banjos quickly became the standard “prewar” banjo acquisition targets, notwithstanding the need for a custom five-string neck and usually a flathead tone ring conversion (adding as much as $5000 to the cost).
As noted, Gibson, which by 1940 dominated what remained of US banjo manufacturing, ceased production of all banjos in 1941 at the onset of World War II, in part because of wartime metal shortages, and likely because Dixieland-Jazz music had faded in popularity and banjo sales were lagging. Gibson almost grudgingly resumed production of a couple of low-end non-Mastertone tenor banjos in 1946 after the war concluded (Styles 100 and 150), but sales were disappointing and soon Gibson was not marketing banjos at all.
Then, Earl Scruggs and his incredible playing burst on the scene as a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, and that style and that banjo quickly became known to thousands of fans, many of whom wanted to learn to play like Earl (I’m guilty of that, one of the best decisions of my life). Suddenly Gibson was back in the banjo business and sales of five string Gibson banjos boomed from 1949 onward. Gibson did not reintroduce “Mastertone” series banjos until 1954, and despite what the market seemingly desired they supplied archtop tone rings on their postwar Mastertone banjos until they switched to player-preferredflathead tone rings in 1964 (this treatise does not intend to diss Gibson in any way—business is business, I have no standing, let alone inside knowledge, to second guess business decisions, and I suspect that neither do very many other players). Some have argued that Gibson was just using leftover archtop rings from before World War II, but that surmise dies quickly because the postwar “four-hole” archtop tone rings differ fundamentallyfrom the prewar 40-hole rings. The 1954-68 Mastertones were very robust and creditable banjos, but Gibson had replaced many of the visual features of the prewar Mastertones with a redesigned peghead shape, and very different inlay patterns.
The new peghead and inlay were the “bowtie” pattern inspired by Gibson guitar designs and featured on all Mastertone banjos until the introduction of the RB-800 in 1964, which sported a prewar Granada-like but heavily modified peghead shape and “Flying Eagle” or occasionally “Hearts and Flowers” inlays. Many players (including me) readily adopted the postwar Gibson bowtie banjos, different in appearance as they were from pre-wars, and many neophytes became very accomplished players on those banjos.
Nowadays, the inherent quality of construction and excellent tone and playability of those 1950s-1960s bowtie Gibsons have made them strong players in the secondhand professional banjo market and they can sometimes be sleeper deals. Most are “mostly” original, but aftermarket flathead tone rings have replaced original archtop tone rings of many 1954-1964 “Bowties.” Highly regarded professional players have at times used Gibsons with Bowtie necks and sometimes all-original Bowtie banjos, notably Earl Scruggs, Douglas Dillard, and Don Reno.
Many players and other banjo enthusiasts regard the1970s through the early 1980s as relatively substandard years for many Gibson instruments, which is ironic because in 1969 Gibson dropped the bowtie banjos and reintroduced banjos that were structurally and visually consistent with some of its prewar models. Those instruments were indeed structurally consistent, but consistent with banjos that Gibson produced between 1927 and 1930. While those original late 1920s banjos were indeed very beautiful instruments (and so were their 1970s successors), for structural reasons beyond the tone ring they could not easily produce the prewar (1930s) tone that Gibson enthusiasts sought. To its credit, Gibson included flathead tone rings on all its 1970s and onward Mastertone banjos, but the tone ring factory fit in the 1970s banjos often required significant alteration from the factory wood rim to the tone ring skirt for the banjo to “bark” like a Mastertone should.
Many players likely commissioned that work when its need became clear, and I have encountered quite a number of those 1970s Gibson Mastertone banjos with refitted tone rings, and which played and sounded great (I also re-fitted several of those loose tone rings on a precision lathe, to the joy of the owners). Gibson continued into the 1980s to produce competent Mastertone banjos, and from 1984 through 2010 they produced the “Earl Scruggs” series, commissioned with the cooperation of Mr. Scruggs. The Earl Scruggs was like a 1930s Granada and Gibson purportedly sold quite a few of that and related models, all of which were renamed the “Earl Scruggs Standard” in 1994.
The most notable post-1970s period for Gibson Mastertone banjo production was the “Greg Rich Era—accurate dates for that era vary among sources, but the likely range is from about 1987 through about 1992. Greg was a legendary banjo maker and he joined Gibson to streamline and improve Mastertone production technique and quality control.
In that he succeeded admirably, and his other principal contribution was to convince Gibson to reintroduce most of the 1930s-early 1940s Mastertones, true to original design, materials, and construction. Suddenly it was possible to purchase a new “prewar” Gibson for far less than five digits and be assured that few prewar originals sounded and played any better.
The Rich Era survived until Greg’s participation ended, but post-Greg Rich Era Gibson Mastertone banjos from 1993 through 2006 that I have played were quite often very good to great instruments. I played a post-Greg Rich Era Top Tension RB-12 at the Gibson outlet in Nashville in 2006 and they had to close the store to get me to put it down—it was that nice a banjo. “Strict sense” (1987-1992) Greg Rich era Gibson Mastertone banjos command somewhat higher prices in the new and used instrument markets these days than do 1982-1987 Gibsons, but far lower prices than do their original prewar 1930s counterparts. Still, players justifiably regard Gibson Greg Rich era Mastertone banjos as very desirable instruments.
