As many of you are aware, one of the biggest revelations to come out of Joe Spann's recent research on prewar Gibson banjo production is that the chronology that was generally accepted for these instruments for decades was, in fact, significantly off, with the banjos generally being from three to five years older than previously thought.
Joe and I have had extensive discussions on this topic and I am convinced that he is absolutely correct. . . still, it's nice when an unexpected bit of evidence comes up that supports his findings. I received photos yesterday of TB-2 #9729-43 which has what appears to be a factory-written date inside the resonator, directly under the large factory order number. I asked Joe for his best estimate for the production date of this banjo, which would previously have been thought to date from 1934 or 1935. Joe's response was "October 1930". . . well as you can see from the photo below, he was off by one week! The date reads "9/23/30".
