Deering Intermediate Banjo, 1990, Like Boston, Nice!

Nice Deering Intermediate banjo in very good+ condition. Per the pictured serial number, appears to have been made in 1990.  The Intermediate is the forerunner model to the current Boston model.  The differences are the Intermediate originally had a thicker rim (newer Bostons I believe now use the thicker rim), comes standard with planetary tuners, and has diamond inlays rather than the guitar tuners and patterned inlays on the Boston.  The Intermediate also originally came with a rosewood neck, however this one appears to have come stock with an ebony neck like the Boston.  A new Boston retail price starts at $2,599 (with guitar tuners, not planetary), so you get basically the same banjo here for quite a bit less, with planetary tuners and a leather padded strap.

There are a few scattered marks or scratches, predominantly on the resonator.  Head and bridge appear to be newer Deering replacements.  Frets have very minor wear, would not show up in pictures. Banjo includes a nice cradle strap. Nearly new hardshell case appears to be a replacement, with key in the case.  Small chip in finish on headstock and chrome is worn off on a portion of the armrest.  Back of headstock and neck shows no wear.  Overall, banjo shows very little wear, especially for a 33 year old instrument.  Please view pictures for more detail.  Questions are welcome.

 Shipping is $76 including insurance anywhere in the lower 48. NOTE:  Due to the fragileness of the neck and headstock on any banjo, it will be detuned, the bridge removed and placed in the case compartment, and additional padding added around the neck in the case. Item normally ships within two business days of cleared receipt barring weather or other force majeure events.  By participating in this auction, Buyer acknowledges he/she has read these terms and agrees to abide by them.  Thanks for looking.

Below is some history from Deering on the Intermediate and Boston banjo models.

“The Boston has quite a history behind it. When we started out to build Deering Banjos the very first banjo we made was called the Intermediate and the heart, or basic guts of that banjo is a relatively new concept and that is that the pot is made out of steel. The steel has good weight and a very good ring for a banjo that is made in a little bit of a lower price range. The inspiration came from a gentleman that used to make banjos up on Mount San Jacinto in a community called Idyllwild. His name was Dave Sleeter. He was a fellow that liked living up in the mountains and built banjos in his cabin and he would make a steel pot and the way he made them was very expensive to make, but the banjos sounded really, really good. So I determined that there was less expensive ways to make the steel rim and it would sound just the same as Dave’s. So we started making them and we started using the 24 piece flange on it because it was really hard to get the holes in a steel rim so perfectly spaced that we could put a whole flange plate on it. We originally were buying flange pieces from Liberty banjo but they kept running out and didn’t want to make any more, and about that time Great Lakes Banjo had quit doing business and we started buying flange pieces from Mark Zimmerman and soon they were all gone, so Mark offered to sell us the die. We bought the die from him, his dad had made the die and we still have the die and we have a punch press that is old and rickety and I won’t let any of our employees run it. We still today, all these years later, this is from the late ‘70’s, come in after hours and Janet and I run the punch two or three times a year. We still personally run the punch press to make those flanges.

The interesting thing about the steel rim is that when we first started making it we went to the San Diego Bluegrass Club. When we got out of the car we could hear the parking lot picking going on and there would always be one banjo that I could hear all the way across the parking lot. We kind of made a game out of going and finding out whose banjo that was, and over a period of time we started to notice that almost every time it was a Boston . That steel rim has a really good clarity of tone. It carries really well and will project beyond banjos that cost a lot more. It is a really good jamming banjo. We call it the Boston because of the banjo heritage of the city of Boston. Over a hundred years ago the whole Mecca of banjos and the banjo world was centered around the city of Boston.” - Greg Deering