Gibson TB-3 Mastertone #158-11

     

Style 3 was the least expensive model in Gibson's Mastertone line.   It was introduced in 1925 and remained in production through 1937, when its price was lowered from $100 to $75 and it was renamed style 75.  While the style 3 of the 1920s had a two-piece flange with maple neck and resonator, a fiddle-shaped peghead and the diamonds and squares inlay pattern, the style changed in 1929 to the configuration seen here.  The flange is one-piece; the wood is mahogany with two white/black/white purfling rings on the back of the resonator, and the peghead shape is double-cut.  There is single white binding on the neck and on both edges of the resonator.  The tone ring is a forty-hole archtop, and the tailpiece is a Grover Presto.

While most style 3 banjos of this period have the leaves and bows inlay pattern in a rosewood fingerboard, they are also sometimes seen with the wreath pattern or the flying eagle pattern shown here.  #158-11 (see Gibson banjo serial numbers vs. factory order numbers)  is unusual in that its peghead inlay is that normally found on style 4 and Granada banjos of the period.

Photos courtesy of George Stahl.
 

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