I got this

singemonkey

It's 85 years old.

It's an 85 year old Vega Regent 5-string banjo

Chabenda

It looks brand new in the photo. A great find!
8)

PeteM

Brilliant

TokyoP0P

Very nice.

el-guapo

I can only hope that you put on your dungarees (the ones with the butt-flap) and spent the weekend on the porch, serenading an ever-growing crowd of feral cats ?

singemonkey

I had a chance to string it up and play a bit. I was told that it might have decent action since banjos were starting to use steel strings at this time. Very true. It could maybe be a hair lower over the 12th fret, but very playable all the way up - unlike my horrific Hondo - which was unplayable above the 5th.

It has an ebony board and fret-end binding, making it incredibly comfortable. Inlays are mother-of-pearl. I was amazed to find that I was playing about 25% faster than before. Since that's all in the right hand, I was a little confused. I can only assume that the very easy fretting removes the left hand as a distraction, allowing the right hand to really get into a flow.

This thing is so old that the skin is... skin! It has a vellum head instead of the modern artificial ones. I was told that I might not like the sound and might want to replace it with a louder modern artificial skin. But it sounds great to my ear. I'm just a bit worried that my bad picking technique may wear it away when my fingerpicks occasionally brush the skin. Only one way to sort that out, I guess.

Hardest thing is that it has friction pegs, rather than geared pegs. And the 5th string slips. But there may be an easy fix for that from what I'm reading. The other pegs are stable - and not that hard to get into tune thanks to my recent purchase of a little polytune clip on.

The tone is delicious. Very warm. If you pluck a chord, the attack dies really quickly - as you'd expect from a banjo - but the decay goes on for ages with this delicious ring. Very pleased.

It only cost me as much as a just one-up from beginner level Fender in the store.

It came with an after-market Ludwig resonator. Quite important since I'm going to be using this bluegrass, finger-picked playing, and these open-back banjos are considered more suitable for 'old-time', frailing, and folk styles.