Kristin Scott Benson - Deering Golden Series banjos

Golden Series

In the early 1980's we 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.

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