Paramount (C.1925) WM.L. LANGE Style A 22 FRET Plectrum banjo W/HSC GREAT SHAPE

Description

Paramount (C.1925) WM.L. LANGE Style A 22 FRET Plectrum banjo W/HSC. TUNERS HAVE BEEN REPLACED AT SOME POINT. SERIAL NUMBER IS 3311. PLEASE EMAIL ANY QUESTIONS, WHICH IS TYPICAL WITH THESE INSTRUMENTS.
A plectrum banjo, lest we forget, is a long scale four-string banjo that has 22 frets to the body, and is tuned to open G tuning exactly the same as a 5-string banjo, except that the 5-string has the extra, short, drone string.   D B G D from the first string to the 4th string is the proper tuning.  There were five major brands of banjos in the 1920s and '30s - in alphabetical order Bacon & Day, Epiphone, Gibson,
Paramount
and Vega.  Each owner of each of these 5 primary brands considers his or her brand to be the best, but of course they were all good.   The
Paramount
brand was owned by Wm. L. Lange who put his name on the headstock of most of the banjos he produced.  Said headstock is chock full of floral mother of pearl inlay, but near the top is the first banner with Mr. Lange's name, then more decorative inlay and a second banner that reads "Paramount," and finally a short keystone that's etched and blackened "Style A," and then more ferns and flourishes.  This banjo has the standard rosewood fingerboard, bound in crème celluloid - and this fingerboard is less fancy than that headstock.  The 'board is decorated with diamonds - alternating two diamonds set at an angle from lower left to upper right, then two etched pearl squares and one diamond on the 3rd, and so on - alternating nearly every other fret, to the 17th fret where the three figures are horizontally positioned, and finally the 22nd fret where three diamonds are symmetrical.   The fingerboard width at the nut is 1 3/16".