The banjo is essentially a drum with added neck and strings, and so at the height of the Roaring Twenties banjo boom several notable American drum manufacturers began to produce tenor and plectrum banjos for use in jazz ensembles. Perhaps the best of these was Indianapolis-based Leedy. Leedy began building banjos in the mid-1920s and were essentially done by 1930 when they went bust and were sold to Conn, but they produced some of the most exquisitely designed and decorated banjos of the great age of the banjo-as-industrial-art. Rarer than Gibson, Bacon, Paramount, or any of their peer-competitors, Leedy banjos had no semi-pro or entry-evel models but were all built on the same high-quality platform: a top-tension metal-clad walnut pot with a heavy metal cap that functioned as a flathead tone-ring. The quality of materials and workmanship ensured that these were some of the loudest banjos around, yet the notes were not shrill but fat and rounded. The necks were of laminated walnut, maple or holly with delicately carved headstocks. The models all featured exotic and mythological themes. Even the base model Olympic featured the same fine design, but as you moved up the line the ornamentation grew more and more elaborate, till in the top-of-the line Grecian, Egyptian, and Hollander models were like Hollywood spectaculars. This Leedy Apollo tenor is in the upper-middle of their model line, but the amazing pyralin-clad fingerboard, headstock, and resonator back give a decent idea of the company standard. The metalwork is all gold-plated with custom engraving all over the pot and the gorgeous adjustable tailpiece. It has Gold Grover two-tab tuners, dead-straight five-piece laminated walnut neck, and the patented Leedy neck-adjustment bolt in the heel. This one has a bolt-on resonator in place of the usual slip-on design, leading me to believe that it was built toward the end of the company’s banjo-making run. There is some damage to the resonator wall near the heel-cutout, but it has been glued up to be structurally sound. It has a recent skin head from Stewart-McDonald, and has been carefully set up to play well, currently in Irish tuning (GDAE), but would kick butt in standard tenor tuning as a Dixieland rhythm-machine. I\'ve added a very nice recent TKL hardshell case. Retail for one of these would be $1200-1500. Offered here for an $850 buy-it-now and a low opening offer of $495. Please contact seller before making payment as the shipping calculator is notably inaccurate.

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