"One point of clarification: Many of the zither-banjos I have seen have the same single defect: one of the tuners has become useless. Fortunately most zither-banjos pegheads are fitted with 2 plates of 3 tuners each. So there are always 5 working…"

"Thanks for the information Ian, I was curious about what happened to Alan's Vibrante as I would have liked to buy it as a momento of our friendship over forty odd years but his daughters sent it to a local salesroom with an estimate of…"

"Richard, it was Gardiner Houlgate, in Wiltshire. There were a number of good quality banjos in that sale, quite likely from a collection. You can scroll through the other items on this…"

"Hello Ian, which salesroom was this sold in please? Alan Middleton's Vibrante was sent for sale to a saleroom in Norfolk when he died last year and I wondered this was his banjo."

"Austin, Everyone should own a zither banjo at least once in their life, if you find that you don't take to this kind of banjo or its repertoire, the 18th century style of a lot of these instruments (particularly the Cammeyer Vibrante, Vibrante…"

"I recently posted on here, a few various banjos in a UK auction. Two weeks ago, the hammer price on this Cammeyer Vibrante was £200. This house charges 15% commission. "

"Ditto for auctions in the USA. There are still fees to the auction house and shipping fees but good banjos do appear and the final bids are sometimes low.  Sometimes massive instrument collections come up for auction and these sometimes include…"

"Austin, as well as keeping an eye on eBay, you might want to sign up with the-saleroom.com for notifications of zither banjos that come up at British auction houses. Several very good instruments have recently sold for reasonable prices. Of course…"

"If the banjo  neck has a truss rod and was built for metal strings, it will no harm. But it will sound nothing like a zither-banjo.  "

"There's a Vibrante that was just listed on Ebay, but the price is too high (1300 GBP). I know of a couple that recently sold privately for $650-800."

"I wouldn't do that to a regular banjo."

"I was thinking of just stringing up my banjo with zither banjo strings"

"Sometimes I think that I might like to have a zither banjo, but then I come to terms with the fact that I would likely never play it.   But I am glad that other people do, they have a neat sound."

"$500 for what?  That's too high for 80% or more of zither-banjos that come up for sale. Upper models are another story. $500 for a Cammeyer Vibrante Royal is a bargain."

"I've seen and played dozens of mid level zither-banjos that needed no work or minimal work.   Since acquiring my own zb-s nothing whatever has gone wrong over two decades.  The big exception is the Cammeyer Patent which while…"

"Very few zither banjos have held up well over the years due to the way that they're constructed. If you're serious about playing one, I'd suggest waiting for a Weaver or a Cammeyer Vibrante to turn up."