How many times have you been out somewhere playing and heard this? We had a church picnic gig last night and before it got started we were just standing around running through some tunes and up walks a man ive known probably 8 years or so. This same man took pics at me and my wifes wedding. He says "Lee i didnt know you played the banjo, I just love the banjo and cant wait to hear yall pick....My uncle gave me a banjo before he died and ive had it ever since and always dreamed of learning to play it but never did" Shortly after that we were all getting our food fixed and what not and he come and sat with me and we're talking and i bring it back up and ask what kind of banjo it was. He says "Its a Gibson i believe (which leads me to believe it likely is cause this fellow has no intrest or knowledge of old instruments)" My ears perk up a lil more and say well how old is the banjo "I reckon its likely 50 years old or more, Its been in the case at the house there for a long time and i never took to trying to learn it" to this i'm about to crawl out of my skin. I politely said well "Im a bit of a nut over old banjos and what not and I'd love to see it sometime" He says "Sure Ill let you check it out" He asked did i know Earls Breakdown and i told him we'd pick it. I thought no more of it as we got up to play . I flat wore out EB including flubbing up the 2nd break pretty close to Earl totally by accident and picked the high break better than ever. It tickled the man slam to death. Afterwards he said "Lee you flat wore that song out son, that was some strong picking on that 5 string" and that tickled me to death. Hes supposed to bring it over to my inlaws who attend that church and theyre to get it to me. Now a literall ton of possibilities lay inside of all of this. 50 or 60 year old banjo thats a Gibson could be one of my dream banjos, a Bowtie. It could be a RB100, 150, 800 even better it could be a pre war, God forbid it be a flathead, a better chance it is little ol Kay or something with a plastic rim. A lot of WHAT IF's are floating around in my head and will be until i lay hands on it. Lets say it is a banjo I've always dreamed of owning. How do i approach the situation. The man would likely give it to me being the type of guy he is and knowig that Im pretty serious about the banjo. That would be awesome as money for my BAS is short and far down on my list of priorities.Lets say he offers to sale it, do i let him set a price uninformed of any value of whatever it may be. I mean if it was a ultra clean Bowtie all original and he says "oh id take 500 for it" do i shove 500 in his hand or run....i doubt i could do that and sleep at night. THen again he might say 2,000 and the best i can do is hand it back and say id love to own it but i cant afford it. Shoot who am i kidding he may just want to keep it and allow it to gather dust and pass it on to his grandkids who will sell it at a pawn shop for a few hundred bucks cause its just some old hillbilly instrument thats taking up space under the bed. What would ya'll do? I'll be back with more info whenever it is i get my hands on whatever it is.
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