This banjo was constructed by a banjo builder in Minnesota for his own use and collection. This gentleman was a customer of First Quality over the years, purchasing many of his parts from us. This banjo has the traditional Hearts and Flowers inlay pattern in the fingerboard and H & F peghead with the Sullivan Bells inlay where normally a logo would have been placed. Gold plated and Granada style engraved parts adorn a very fancy curly maple neck and birds eye maple resonator. The tuning machines have been custom fitted with ebony buttons.
We thought we’d take some time to share what’s going on at First Quality these days. Over the years folks who’ve been to our showroom have always commented when coming through our front door about how the place has changed from visit to visit. That continues to be true as we find ourselves embracing even more changes both in the products we will be selling and the overall look of our physical location where we do our business.
As everyone knows the name Sullivan is synonymous with five string banjos. Our founder Bill Sullivan began this business in 1970 as a hobby in his home and some 40 years later we find ourselves in our current location where we still build banjos and do custom work.
The Sullivan Banjo Company shares our Trade Port Drive location and will be one of the areas where folks will be noticing some changes. We’ll be enhancing the current banjo room and adding some additional production space devoted to the banjos we build. Enhancements in our production capabilities with the addition of more CNC technology and a greatly improved and enlarged spray booth will increase our productivity while maintaining and improving quality.
On the retail side here at First Quality we have decided to return to our bluegrass roots. In an ever changing market, we tried to broaden the scope of our business to include a wider inventory and found after some time that the right thing to do would be to focus our resources on the foundation that the company had grown upon. The Sullivan Banjo will be the core along with going back to a broader selection of Martin guitars along with mandolins. Plans are to give the customer a wide selection of price points in the guitars and mandolins and have those instruments on hand in our showroom so the choices will be there for our customers. We are in progress on making the necessary changes in our showroom to make this a reality during the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2012.
We’ll be passing along updates over the upcoming weeks on the progress of these changes, if you find you are in the area stop in and see us.
We just received a beautiful new Sullivan Vintage 35 Walnut. Equipped with it’s standard Vintage 35 tone ring and Sullivan Old Growth rim this banjo is a powerhouse! These banjos are responsive up and down the entire neck and filled with that special sound usually reserved for those instruments with many years of seasoning. The walnut banjos are a special lot in that their tone has characteristics of both a maple and a mahogany banjo and it’s a beaut to boot!
We just received a beautiful new Sullivan Bardstown.
This banjo is crafted of the finest materials, from it’s Honduras Mahogany neck wood, quilted Mahogany resonator, hardrock maple woodrim and classic Sullivan tone ring it is not only a thing of beauty but a powerful banjo indeed. Even though it’s brand new and right out of the workshop this one is impressive! Give us a call.
Many times when you call in for ordering, with requests or questions the voice you hear answering the phone is that of our very own Murrell Thixton. Murrell is the banjo player for the group Storefront Congregation, a four piece band from Louisville, Ky that performs bluegrass and acoustic music. This weekend they will join Kyle Ramey, Kati Penn and Newtown, and 9 time IBMA fiddler of the year Michael Cleveland in a concert to benefit 3 local charities The Salvation Army, The Center for Women and Families, andThe Home of the Innocents. If you’d like details on how you can attend you can find more information about the concert here.
This video clip promoting the upcoming event is from a broadcast of Great Day Live a local morning show on our ABC affiliate WHAS television. We’re proud of Murrell and his group for their support of these most worthy charities.
We hope you enjoy the clip, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
We just got a new Vintage 35 Maple and it is beautiful. Beautiful figured resonator and neck, a real dandy. The Vintage 35′s all come with Old Growth rims and a Vintage 35 tone ring. If you’d like all the specs you can click here and you’ll be able to see all the details.
Give us a call and we’ll get you in the drivers seat. 800-635-2021 x126
We just took in on consignment a 1978 Gibson Hummingbird guitar. This guitar has been professionally refinished and is in like new condition. The original pick guard has been replaced with a new genuine Gibson Hummingbird pick guard. This is an excellent repair job and it IS a great sounding instrument. Very balanced and has great bass response, would make an excellent rhythm guitar. Comes with gold Kluson style tuning machines, and a hard shell case. Priced at $1,799.00 it won’t be here long, give us a call. 800.635.2021 ext 126
Good Friend and creator of Fretmentor.com Dave Jakubiak is hosting it’s 3rd annual Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin & Fiddle workshop in Sunny Lake Worth, (Palm Beach County) Flordia. David had scheduled the workshop for January 28th and 29th 2012 to let all of us suffering from the winter blues to meet up in Flordia for some warm weather and some wonderful instruction. David is featuring Alan Munde, Byron Berline, and Jim Hurst… you can’t get much better than that. For more information on this event make sure and check out Fretmentor.com or you can email David directly at david@fretmentor.com
We recently agreed to help our long time customers Mike and Sue Gardner put up a portion of their musical instrument collection for sale. Below are videos of each instrument so you can get a good look at each one. We also have descriptive blogs on each piece where you can find additional details on the instruments. You can use the item number to help locate the respective blog associated with the instrument you’re interested in. As you scroll through the postings you will find the individual blogs in reverse numerical order from item 25 through item 1.
Careful acoustic research has resulted in the full, rich and warm sound of this popular model. Two single coil pickups on a full size body are accented by a traditionally shaped sound hole. The 24 fret Rosewood fingerboard is punctuated by dot inlay fret markers, with full double cutaways permitting access to all the frets. Standard output is monaural through a single jack plate.
