Overview of
Style 3
Mastertone Banjos
Gibson's "Mastertone" line of higher-end banjos debuted in 1925 with style 3 as its lowest-priced model. Style 3's original specifications included straight-grained maple with a cordovan stain:
The hardware was nickel-plated and, as with other early Mastertone models, included a two-piece "tube-and-plate" flange and a grooved tension hoop with flat hooks:
In the first couple of years of production, style 3 Mastertone banjos featured resonators with ivoroid binding on the back edge only:
In 1925 and 1926, all
Mastertone models including style 3 featured a ball-bearing tone ring with sixty
holes:
The earliest
version of this ball-bearing tone ring, seen primarily on examples from 1925,
also had holes in the outer skirt:
Style 3 Mastertone
banjos from 1925 to 1928 featured a fiddle-shaped peghead and the "diamonds and
squares" inlay pattern in a rosewood fingerboard:
The earliest version, seen primarily on examples from 1925, had the word "Mastertone" inlaid in small individual letters on the peghead just under the script "Gibson" logo:
Circa 1926, the word "Mastertone"
moved to a mother-of-pearl block at the end of the fingerboard:
Circa 1927, all
Mastertone models including style 3 changed from the ball-bearing tone ring to a
cast metal raised-head, or archtop, tone ring. While the exterior
"beveled" appearance of the head remained the same, the new tone ring
construction is evident inside the body, with some of the earlier raised-head
rings having no holes. . .
. . . while the
forty-hole variety soon became the standard on all Mastertone models:
With the change to cast
raised-head tone rings also came a change to notched, rather than grooved,
tension hoops with round, rather than flat, hooks. The resonators also
gained ivoroid binding on the front as well as the back edge:
Throughout the
production run of the style 3 Mastertone, the standard tailpiece was the Grover
Patent Presto:
The tuners were also by
Grover, with earlier examples typically having the "two-tab" type attached with
screws. . .
. . . and later
examples more commonly seen with Grover tuners that are held in place by nuts on
the front of the peghead and have no tabs or screws in the back:
In 1929, Gibson
redesigned its Mastertone line. For the
style 3, this meant a change from
the two-piece "tube-and-plate" flange to a one-piece flange made of die-cast
"pot metal":
The neck and resonator
were changed from maple to mahogany, with two concentric rings of
white-black-white purfling on the back of the resonator:
The peghead shape
changed to the "double-cut" design and the standard inlay pattern was changed to
the "leaves and bows" design:
Other inlay patterns
were sometimes used on style 3 Mastertones of the period, however, usually when
the factory wanted to use up leftover inlays from discontinued models.
Nonstandard inlay patterns seen on
style 3 Mastertone banjos include the wreath
pattern formerly used on fancy style 5 Mastertones. . .
. . . the even-fancier
peghead pattern used on the Bella Voce model of the late 1920s. . .
. . . the "flying
eagle" fingerboard pattern used on the higher-priced
style 4 and
Granada Mastertones. . .
. . . and other
strange combinations:
The forty-hole
raised-head tone ring remained standard on
style 3 tenor banjos in the 1930s,
but style 3 plectrum and five-string banjos were now routinely fitted with the
new flathead tone ring which, according to Gibson literature of the time,
imparted "greater brilliancy, sweeter tone, more volume and easier respone" to
plectrum Mastertones and "extra twang and ring" to "regular", or five-string,
models. The flathead tone ring allowed the entire surface area of the head
to vibrate freely. Inside the banjo, its sloping inner face is clearly
visible and, as with the cast raised-head ring, some early examples were made
with no holes. . .
. . . before the factory settled on a twenty-hole design:
Style 3 banjos of both
the 1920s and 1930s featured the guarantee label found inside the rim of all Mastertone models. . .
. . . as well as a
factory order number stamped inside the rim. . .
. . . and written
inside the resonator:
By 1937, declining
banjo sales prompted Gibson to drastically overhaul its banjo line;
style 3 was
lowered in price from $100 to $75 and it was renamed
style 75, in keeping with
Gibson's new trend of naming instrument models according to their retail prices.
Style 3 would remain out of production until being revived by Gibson in the late
1980s for a series of historic reissues.
