Mid-sixties Gibson RB-100 Neck and
Resonator and Current Hatfield Pot
(click
on the above to enlarge)
· Mid 60s original converted to modern flat head
configuration by Arthur Hatfield
· Mahogany neck with rosewood ‘dots’ fingerboard
· Mahogany sunburst resonator
· ‘Dots’ neck
inlay and ‘Script’ letters paddle shaped peg head
· 5 star tuners
· Hatfield long skirt 20 hole tone ring
· Cox rim
· Recording King flange
· Prucha hardware
· Levy’s Leather strap
“I bought this banjo
at Pick ‘n Grin in Knoxville, TN in
1987. Bud Brewster and Glen Laney were working the store that
day and both were involved in the set up of the banjo. At that time, it was in
the form of an original RB-100 with a 4 hole archtop tone ring configuration with a heavy Ode
tailpiece. As a mid sixties 100, it had
a thin black rim that the archtop tone ring sat on
well and with Bud and Glen’s set up one knows it would sound really good. As I
recall the original price at that time was $450.00. I also traded a late 70s
Aria Pro II ‘vines of life’ flat head banjo with a small amount of cash. This banjo sounded really good for both
bluegrass and clawhammer and was my main banjo from
1987 to the mid-ninties.
In the mid-nineties, I
decided that I wanted to swap out the archtop ring
for a flathead. I sent the pot to Mr. Bill
Sullivan of First Quality Music
in Louisville for the conversion. We discussed that there would be a bit of a
hangover on the thin rim and that would possibly affect the tonal quality. As
it turned out, the sound with the Tennessee 20 tone ring on this rim was not
what I was looking for and of course, the rim had been cut down for the archtop ring so I could not put that ring back. Luckily, I
had bought a mid sixties RB100 uncut rim from Wyatt Fawley of Greensboro, PA a bit
earlier and so I installed that rim along with a ¼” tone hoop (as per the original RB100 configuration) and
the banjo was back to ‘as original’ and I maintained that until 2004.
In 2002, I had bought
a Huber Vintage gold plated tone ring from Greg
Brown of Georgia and since I was living in Kentucky at that time with Frank
Neat being located in the next county to the East, I took the banjo to him and
asked that he install this ring with a Cox rim. This produced an excellent
bluegrass banjo and I kept this configuration for a couple of years. During my stay in Kentucky I met Arthur
Hatfield around 2002 or 2003. In 2004, I
took the banjo to him for a new neck an resonator.
Everything was used except the neck and the resonator and this banjo may be
seen as the Gibson
RB-3 Parts Banjo.
I was left with the
RB-100 neck and resonator. As with most tinkerers, I decided to have a pot
produced for this to see what kind of quality banjo could be produced. Arthur
produced a pot using a Cox rim, one of his long skirt 20 hole flat head tone
rings, and Prucha hardware – a pot similar to
one of his banjos. This has produced a very high quality ‘parts’ banjo and one
capable of being played in any professional setting.
Since banjos are
composed of parts that may be easily switched out, this process may be seen as
confusing to some. To be perfectly clear, this is a “parts” banjo that is
basically a Gibson RB-100 neck and resonator attached to a current Hatfield
pot. “
Click HERE to view individual high-resolution photos or go to photobucket for easy navigation or slideshow of photos.
$ (Inquire for price)