Comment by thereallyniceman on January 14, 2011 at 14:05

Great banjo...   A Weaver made 11" Clifford Essex. One of the best for Classic style in my opinion.

My favourite banjo is an 11"CE wood hoop.   The  Weaver tailpiece on yours is very characteristic and I am always amazed that it actually works just floating about  tied on with a bit of gut or nylon!

I have a CE Weaver 12" Professional... Weaver certainly knew his stuff :-)

 

Ian in the UK

Comment by Steve Harrison on January 14, 2011 at 15:48

This banjo used belong to Richard Ineson, it was his second best Weaver and I've owned it for about 8 years. From the Clifford Essex address on the perch pole, it's  definitely pre 1919 and from the general construction and the square bracket nuts it was probably made a good deal earlier than that.  I use Chris Sands medium gauge strings and I've recently fitted a Clifford Essex heavy 4th which now that it's played in sounds good. Not much to look at but a great sounding banjo.

Comment by Trapdoor2 on January 14, 2011 at 19:00

Looks a lot like my CE Special...except for the tailpiece. I understand the 5th string pip and the heel shape are key elements of identifying a Weaver-built Essex. Any chance to get a good pic of those on your banjo?

Comment by Steve Harrison on January 14, 2011 at 19:31

No problem, I'll try and get it done over the weekend. It has the classic Weaver spoon shaped heel. One of the things I'm going to try is to make a Weaver style tail piece and try it on one of my Windsors to see if it make an appreciable difference to the tone.

Comment by Steve Harrison on January 15, 2011 at 8:25

I've uploaded the pictures on my home page. The cork on a piece of wire you can see is my mute for practising when she who is to be obeyed complains. It fits between the bridge base and perch pole. You can also see a small piece of radiator hose fitted to the edge of the rim which stops the banjo slipping when I play. It is attached by drilling holed in the tube and pushing it over the bracket nuts.

Comment by Steve Harrison on January 15, 2011 at 13:54

Do you history of your CE special? Did Clifford Essex routinely export banjos to the USA and how well known were they? With all the excellent American banjo makers, I was surprised that they got a look in.

Comment by Jody Stecher on January 15, 2011 at 15:52

Steve, I think your question was directed at Traptdoor Marc but I'll chime in here.  To date all the Clifford Essex banjos I've seen in the USA, no more than a dozen, were acquired second hand. Or third or fourth hand. They seem to have been brought over here mostly by returning American visitors to the UK, South Africa, or Australia. Another source is Canada, where new Clifford Essex banjos *may* have once been available. I don't know for a fact if they ever were sold new here in the USA. A logical source would be immigrants from the UK and its colonies but I know of no such actual stories, but I do know of some good quality Windsors that came over that way. One was part of a dowry so to speak, not that the guy was interested.  A recent source is Australian and UK ebay.

Comment by Trapdoor2 on January 15, 2011 at 16:50

Yah, mine was acquired thru ebay and the sellor was in England. No other info on it. It was strung with wire, had a broken "Grover Non-Tip" on it...and the case is not original to the banjo.

From looking at your pictures (thank you!), my banjo is obviously quite a bit newer. The 5th string pip is identical to mine but I've got the later hexagonal bracket nuts. The heel on your banjo appears a bit wider than mine, more bulbous. Mine is almost a V shape, rounded on the end.

I do know that American banjoists of the period were commonly playing British sheet music, esp. the stuff from CE and JAT. I have found lots of Morley over here. I suspect they were reading BMG and so would have been exposed to advertizements, etc. However, I suspect most were brought back as Jody relates.

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