John Croft, Glan Tanat, Llanyblodwel, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY10 8NQ, England. Tel: (44) 01691 - 828850.
E-Mail: theukuleleman@hotmail.com

Gibson Banjo Ukes.

*** No part of this Article may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written consent of the Author.***
Copyright by J.E.Croft, October 8th, 2001.

Below are a couple of photographs to illustrate a few of the points made on the last page.

The top photo shows the peghead inlays on a very early (1925) example of the (post ‘trapdoor’ UB-3). The design mirrored that of the peghead on some of the higher grade Gibson Mandolin Banjo’s and was one that Gibson had used for many years. The second photo shows the classic fingerboard inlay pattern on the UB-3, whilst the photo at the bottom left shows a nice example of a UB-3 (c.1927) with the peghead inlay pattern that superceeded that shown in the top photograph. Bottom right is a rare exmple of an early UB-2 (1925) with just twelve tension hooks. Within about two years they were made with fourteen hooks, like the UB-3. The pattern of dots on this UB-2’s fingerboard is the standard ‘three dot’ pattern, but when introduced in 1925 they had dots at the 5th, 7th, 10th, and 15th frets, and a pair at the 12th fret. This pattern was soon discontinued on the UB-2 only to re-appear on the new ‘big’ UB-3 in 1930.

From catalogue evidence it appears that the UB-2 with dot inlay was dropped from the Gibson line sometime shortly after 1927. The UB-1 continued unaltered, but the original UB-3 (bottom left photo) was then re-designated as a UB-2. A new ‘Professional Extended Resonator’ model was then added to the line, which was structurallyidentical to the UB-2 and UB-3 but it had a much larger resonator, sixteen tension hooks, and a diamond holed flange. This new ‘UB-3’ was only ever advertised in Gibson catalogues with dot inlay up the fingerboard of the type that first occurred on the original 1925 UB-2 (described earlier), but examples are sometimes found of the same model but with the fancier old ‘UB-3’ inlays (see bottom left photo). All these bigger UB-3’s had binding along each side of the fingerboard. To the best of my knowledge this bigger UB-3 is first advertised in Gibson’s 1930 catalogue (catalogue ‘S’?), and last appears in1936.

If, like me, you often look for evidence about instruments from manufacturers catalogues, then BEWARE! Old Gibson catalogues contain many errors. Instrument photo’s are sometimes wrong such as in the Gibson 1930 catalogue in which the the UB-3 is wrongly labelled a UB-4, and vice versa. The Gibson 1932 catalogue ‘U’ shows the correct photo for a UB-3 and the same one for a UB-4! NEXT