Vega Tu-ba-phone Banjo: Museum Object and Cultural History
Vega Tu-ba-phone Banjo: Date made: 1909-1925. date made: ca 1922. maker: Vega Company.
The object in the museum catalogue
This banjo was made by the Vega Company in Boston, Massachusetts, around 1922. It is a Four-String Banjo, Tu-ba-phone Model No. 3, Serial #50232, with a patented brass top hoop and bracket band over a seven-lap sectional maple hoop, 28 brackets, mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard with22 frets and inlaid pearloid dots and star position marks, carved heel, peghead with flowerpot inlay, Grover style tuners with ivoroid buttons. The dowel stick is stamped:
[Vega star] FAIRBANKS BANJO MADE BY THE VEGA COMPANY BOSTON, MASS. [Vega star] NO. 3 PAT. Dec 30.1890 JAN 10.1893 JULY 27.1909
U. S. Patent #443510 dated December 30, 1890, by Albert C. Fairbanks, for new and useful improvements in banjos.
U. S. Patent #489470 dated January 10, 1893, by Albert C. Fairbanks, for new and useful improvements in banjos.
U. S. Patent #928948 dated July 27, 1909, by David L. Day, assignor to the Vega Company, for an improved means for stretching and retaining the head of a banjo.
The Vega Company purchased the A. C. Fairbanks Company in 1904 and produced banjos of high quality largely based on earlier designs of Fairbanks. This Tu-ba-phone model incorporated a heavy “tone ring” originally patented by Fairbanks in 1890, a feature still favored by modern banjo players for the quality of tone it produces.
Materials, dates and provenance
- Date made: 1909-1925
- date made: ca 1922
- maker: Vega Company
- Object Name: banjo
- Physical Description: maple (overall material)
- Physical Description: ebony (overall material)
- Physical Description: mahogany (overall material)
- Physical Description: metal (overall material)
- Physical Description: animal skin (overall material)
- Measurements: overall: 37 1/2 in x 11 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in; 95.25 cm x 29.21 cm x 6.35 cm
- place made: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
- ID Number: 1987.0055.01
- catalog number: 1987.0055.01
- accession number: 1987.0055
- Credit Line: Gift of Adam Gallan
- Data Source: National Museum of American History
Sources and reuse
Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.
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