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

Ludwig 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, January 21st, 2002.

Thus it was, that in 1925 with the business booming, R. C. Danly was given the task of setting the company up to design and manufacture banjos in order to capture a share of the huge banjo market of the time. Every cinema had an orchestra including a banjoist, and every theatre and vaudeville hall had the same, so banjos were selling in their thousands. In 1925, after investing several hundred thousand dollars (millions in today’s money) on tooling up to produce their newly designed range of banjos, an advertising ‘flyer’ was circulated from the company to all musical instrument dealers announcing their new range of instruments, and in late 1925 or early 1926 the first range of Ludwig banjos was produced, together with their first banjo catalogue. These banjos were all of ‘bottom tension’ design, and it wasn’t until 1927 and the introduction of their new ‘top tension’ range, that the Ludwig banjo uke was born.

Before starting to chat about Ludwig banjo ukes, it may be useful to tell you briefly about the various styles of ‘pot’ that the company produced. These styles are shown in chronological order in the photographs of Ludwig banjos below, all of which except the last one come from Ludwig catalogues. Far left on the top row is the standard style of bottom-tension pot introduced in 1926. Note the narrow flange which does not extend to the resonator. At the same time, almost every Ludwig banjo model came in a ‘De Luxe’ option (below right), which retained the bottom-tension system but which had a flange extending all the way to the resonator and containing crown shaped cut-outs.

On the second row (far left) is a photograph of the front cover of the 1927 catalogue, which heralded the arrival of Ludwig’s top-tension range, with a beautifully embossed picture showing the new style. The original standard bottom-tension style was now dropped altogether, although some old ’De Luxe’ style Banjos continued to be manufactured until all of the parts had been used up. All the banjos from 1927 onwards had a ‘scalloped’ bezel.

This new style can be seen in the photograph below centre. However, as can be seen from the photograph below right, a few models were made with ‘spade’ shaped cut-outs in the flange, although by far the majority of the middle to higher grade models had the ‘crown’ shaped pattern.

The cheaper models in the new top-tension range were distinguishable by a different pattern in the flange, as illustrated by the photograph below left, which shows a simple but attractive ‘slotted’ pattern. Finally (below right) there is the flange type as found only on the ‘Columbia’ model. NEXT