Featured I'm a picker, but not a banjo picker - help w/1960s Bacon 'Folk Model' banjo find?

I found this banjo (along with a smaller, open back 1 that looks like it might say Ella or Stella on the head) at my local thrift store - when I opened the case & saw BACON on the top I thought it was some kind of joke; I'd never heard of a Bacon banjo (or guitar), but then I saw the plaque & I thought it was a custom made piece or a prize until I read 'Folk Model' - googling that I found out that I had a Bacon - Gretch circa 1960's folk model banjo & it was a good thing!
I also noticed that there were not that many Folk Models (there were a lot of Bacon - Day?) and even more unusual is that as I read about it I saw I could date it by the serial number on the dowel, but googling banjo dowel showed it was a support in the back of the banjo frame/skin and mine was a "closed" banjo with a wood backing & not a open back banjo - which is what every other Folk Model Bacon banjo I found was!
Looking at the photo of the back of the banjo where the neck meets the frame, you can see the wood back's opening for the neck is not straight; it looks like it was put on a little off center.
Are there other closed back folk model banjos like mine or could mine be a "Frankenstein" model someone made?
Are these as rare as they seem? (I've seen ones that sold but not 1 for sale (except mine now on eBay!)
Any information on this would be a great help & appreciated.
Thank you!

 

@all_fakes may be able to tell you more.

 

It looks like the "resonator" (the back) may have been added later to an original open back. You might refer to it as a marriage rather than a Frankenstein.

 

I only know what I've seen when someone plays one. Maybe this one was repaired at some point?

 

Parts of it appear to have been handmade. The curve at the base of the neck is odd looking and not symmetrical. The wood (?) inserted beneath the head to make it fit is odd, or maybe that's not what I'm looking at?

It looks like it's very heavy, is it?

 

As a former banjo player, I have some familiarity with the instruments. They are made in various configurations. Some (most bluegrass banjos) include a resonator - the circular wooden back seen on journey's. A resonator, along with steel strings, synthetic heads and finger picks, amplifies the sound (as if you want the damn things to be even louder). Others are an older style of "open back" banjos, made without a resonator. Open back banjos are closer to the historical origins of banjos, which featured hide heads and gut strings, producing a quieter, less harsh sound.

From descriptions online, I believe the Bacon "Folk Model" was designed as the older style of open back - hence "folk" model - and it did not originally include a resonator. In the case of the one journey has found, someone decided they wanted a resonator on it. Some tinkering may have been required to attach it. In the process they made the rather rough cut on the edge to accommodate the neck, and didn't get it oriented quite symmetrically.

I don't see what you are seeing.

 

Others have reasonable comments - I'll add that Bacon was a very good name for older instruments, banjos and mandolins - 1920 or such - but by the 1960's, not so much.
Banjos are much more an assemblage of hardware than guitars - you wouldn't buy a guitar, and then take it all apart into a hundred pieces - but with a banjo, you can unscrew stuff, exchange and add parts, put the neck from one onto the body of another, switch tone-rings - quite easily.
So here the wood back - the resonator - is probably just a press- fit, and could easily be pried off, and you'll have an open-back banjo. And it could certainly be an addition; it does look like the cut-out has been altered or enlarged.
If trying to remove it, be careful - it could be that whoever was altering it has glued it on - which would not be at all normal with a stock resonator, which would come as a tight press-fit, but an altered one might not fit right as a press-on, so they could have glued it instead. Personally, I'd hate to buy a banjo and find the resonator had been glued on. Mine are all either press-fit, or a screw in the center of the resonator back (which yours obviously does not have). Some would have brackets to attach the resonator to the body - again, not on yours.

 

I'm not seeing the wood beneath the head; but there are spots on a banjo where one might add a shim to adjust neck-angle or other clearances; and again, it is not uncommon to find banjos where a neck has been added to a different body, and might need one or more shims to make it fit.

 

The only thing I see beneath the head is the nut?

 

This is the other banjo - can anyone make out the name? I see Ella (my first thought was Stella)?
It is a lot smaller than the Bacon.

 

I can't say for sure, but doesn't look like a Stella to me; not sure what that other word might be. A pretty basic 4-string or tenor banjo, I'd guess around 1970 or later. And though I play 4-strings myself, the market for 4-string banjos is quite small, since they would not be suited for bluegrass.

 

I mispoke, I meant to type "neck". Would you please forgive me? I included a photo below.

Yes that's what this may be - please let me know if this looks like a shim to you, Brad:

 

And THIS is the bend or curve at the base of the neck to which I referred:

 

The bend is likely just that the white binding in that area is bent out; an easy fix, unless it has already been glued in that position.
One odd thing about the resonator, though; normally, a stock resonator has a gap all around, so that sound from the open back of the banjo itself bounces off the resonator, exits through that round gap. This may have been retro-fitted in such a way that there is no gap, which would mean that 1) it is likely glued in place, and 2) it won't function as a resonator, but might actually muffle the sound.
Also adding, re selling a 4-string banjo: although demand is less than for 5-strings, the supply today is also less, so they certainly can be sold on ebay and elsewhere, perhaps with prices less than for 5-strings, though.

 

Steve, is that a shim beneath the neck attachment?
Can you tell what happened to the base? Is that glue?

 

I can't really tell what is going on there - it is quite possible that in order to make a resonator fit, when it really didn't quite fit, someone might have done almost anything - glued an extra piece of wood on, in order to glue the resonator on, is quite possible - the non-symmetry of the altered area indicates to me that they were not especially careful in what they were doing.

 

agreed, thanks