It’s fitting that a shop like ours, which deals with Somogyis and McConnells, and Traugotts all day, would come across a banjo worthy enough to pass muster among the guitar world’s greatest builders. Enter: our 1995 Deering Gabriella, owned by banjo maestro and “banjoholic” Mary Z Cox. This model is the pinnacle (read: to date, only 15 ever made) of Deering’s catalog, and this example from 1995 goes one step further than even its rarified siblings in that it features a Brazilian Rosewood resonator and neck. Gold hardware abounds, right down to the tuners and tailpiece, and both the resonator and neck are trimmed out in both Abalone and Ivoroid. The fingerboard is wrapped in Mother-of-Pearl, with vine-and-leaf inlays across frets 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19, and 21. The headstock is also inlaid with MOP, a tangle of vines surrounding the Deering logo and the (you guessed it: MOP) truss rod cover. The back of the resonator features a wreath of raised MOP-and-Maple vines, and just above that you’ll find an intricately carved heel with yet more twisting leaves and vines.
The sheer number of hours that went into this Deering Gabriella baffles the mind. It feels like holding a craftperson’s entire career in your hands when you play it. A banjo for the record books.