Golden Series™

In 1983 Janet Deering, my wife, went on a nationwide sales trip by loading our camper with banjos and hitting the road while I stayed at home making banjos and taking care of the kids. In 10 weeks she covered 14 thousand miles and crossed the country visiting stores across the country opening many new Deering dealers who are still with us today.

While Janet was in the southeast she noticed a cultural phenomena that banjo players had to have a prewar banjo or one that looked like it. It almost didn’t matter how good our banjo was if it didn’t look like the prewar. At first this was discouraging to us but then we realized that the currently made prewar style banjos didn’t come anywhere close to the actual prewar banjos in quality or sound. So we realized that what the banjo world needed was a prewar style banjo that was truly comparable to the actual prewars and we set out to do the best job that had ever been done making these classic banjos.

I contacted a number of banjo players who owned one of the few original 5-string prewar banjos. Only about 150 of the 1930’s prewar banjos were actually 5-strings. The rest were all four strings. Most of us only know the prewars that have non-original necks that are converted four strings. Very few of us have actually held one of the original 5-string prewars in our hands. So I rounded up three actual original 5-string prewars and had them all sitting on my bench at the same time. Funny thing is those three banjos weren’t all the same. There was some noticeable variation.

So I studied these banjos intensely, documented, and measured them and documented and measured them again and again and we came out with the Golden Era banjo as a result of that study. The Golden Era neck shapes are not a Deering neck shape. They are a prewar neck shape which is narrower at the nut and has more taper in the thickness of the neck from the nut to the heel which gives them a distinctive prewar feel.

We make these banjos because our customers asked us to make them and when we offered these banjos, people bought them, many of whom have expressed to us that they are the best prewar style banjos made today.   - Greg Deering