About the Deering Banjo Company
Our Mission: “To champion the banjo and inspire creativity around the globe by supplying the best quality, American made banjos available to players of all abilities.”
A Warm Welcome...
Welcome to the wonderful online world of Deering Banjos where we invite you to check out our full range of American made banjo’s including the Deering, Vega, Tenbrooks, and Goodtime banjos, all of which are hand built by Janet and I and our team of 33 dedicated banjo specialists right here in our Spring Valley, California facility, just 10 miles East of downtown San Diego.
We focus only on making banjos in our factory so that all of our staff’s 231 years of combined banjo building expertise is directed toward making the highest quality banjos in all price ranges and providing the best banjos in the world.
We would love to have you come visit us and take a factory tour. It is a great honor for us to share the joy we and our staff have in making banjos. Over the past 36 years we have made more than 76,000 banjos and every one of them has been crafted with special attention.
We are a family run business, and we regard our craftsmen, suppliers, dealers, and especially our customers as part of the Deering family. Our focus and passion is to create great banjos that enable you as an artist to enjoy expressing yourself and your music.
We look forward to building your special banjo.
Greg and Janet Deering
A Brief History...
Greg Deering began learning woodworking from his father at the age of two by watching him build model airplanes. Growing up in San Diego, he received his first tools and tool box which he had carefully laid out in his wagon on his third birthday. Many of these tools he still has today. That is how important this was to him. It was a career in the making.
At the age of 12, Greg purchased his first banjo by investing a months pay from his paper route into a used banjo. He learned to play Kingston Trio songs on his banjo with his best friend Tom playing guitar.
Greg made his first banjo as an industrial arts major at San Diego State College. In 1970, at 19 years of age he joined other enterprising young college students at the American Dream Co-Op and began doing instrument repairs and building banjos. This co-op would become the birth place of at least four now world renowned instrument manufacturers - a true tribute to the concept of the American dream! The American dream became the theme of Greg’s life when he and Janet started the Deering Banjo Company in 1975 as a family business. Together they not only raised two children but built, piece by piece, the Deering banjo factory.
Today, over 35 years later, the Deering Banjo Company has seen many a milestone including the launch of the Goodtime Series in 1985, the relocation to a new 18,000 sq.ft. premises in 1991 and the launch of the Eagle II in 2009, a breakthrough in banjo tone with the development of the new 20/20 tone ring.
In its young 35 year life, Deering has delivered the finest hand built American instruments to over 76,318 happy musicians and counting…one banjo at a time.