My favorite banjo - a 1990 Deering Calico blonde beauty, from before they made the switch to the honey-amber finish and -06- tone ring. This one features a blonde, eastern hard rock maple rim with the original Deering sand-cast tone ring. It gives a powerful, kind of a deeper or tubbier sound compared to the newer model. I like it better, as the newer one sounds more like every other nice brand. This has the old school Deering growl.

It also SMELLS great - like it’s never lost the 1990s, high-end music store smell I associate with The String Shoppe, a long gone Buffalo guitar store that often stocked this model back in the day.

This banjo is in excellent condition with no dings or scratches and very little fret wear, however it does have some significant hard-to-photograph checking on the back of the resonator. There is also a small bubble up in the headstock overlay’s lacquer around the g-string tuner.

The stupid-high price is a reflection of my hesitation to sell this banjo, and includes great-smelling original hardshell case. Please don’t buy this I’ll be sad.