Montgomery Ward Concertone

It was I believe, made by Slingerland for the Montgomery Ward Catalogue company who then branded is as Concertone. I'm very taken by my old Gretsch Clarophone so I've been quite keen to get more old US Banjoleles and I'm also very impressed with the quality of my old Slingerland Ukulele so a Slingerland made one was quite high on the list. When this came on with a buy it now price that I thought was extreeeemely competitive and it was already in the UK I didn't hesitate for long. Then after clicking the button I saw it wasn't a 16 bracket Banjolele it was a 15 bracket one! One of the brackets is missing and that's going to be a bugger to get hold of a replacement. Everything else looks OK though and 15 brackets should be enough to keep the tension up on the head so hopefully it will still rock.

Now its here I can see the fretboard has dried out a bit and shrunk so there are some little cracks and the frets need dressing but its basically pretty sound. It all works and apart from the missing tension hook there is no other real damage. The tuners work fine the head is fine - its got steel strings on at the moment but they are very old so I will change them, (and probably put nylon on to be on the safe side). The action is a bit high but the strings have eaten into the bridge anyway so I'll start there by sanding the top down and lowering it that way. I think with a little bit of work this will be lovely