Levi Brown, banjo maker, player, and bon-vivant...

Originally posted on www.kristinagaddy.com 

At this year's (2015) 19th Century Banjo Gathering (Banjo Collector's Gathering), Pete Ross and I presented on Levi Brown. 

This banjo is owned by banjo researcher and historian Bob Winans. For many years, he knew that it was an antique, Minstrel-Era banjo from around the same time as the famous Boucher banjos. But there was no maker's mark or indication of where it came from. Until this showed up: ​

This tailpiece showed up on a banjo that had a nearly identical silhouette to Winans's banjo and had that mark: Levi Brown, Balto. Winans's research of banjo dealers and makers turned up the crucial information that Brown called himself a maker in advertisements and city directories. ​

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