The BRC owner overlooked this marking for many years in his four Baldwin/Ode 5 stringers. Note the adjacent 4th string for size reference. On very close inspection, the tailpiece may be seen to bear the subtle `Ode` imprint. Of note, the ODE lettering and inlay on the peghead on the upper left are not original but were installed by the BRC founder after he recovered the Boulder-built parts which had languished in a garage for 40 years. How does a Baldwin/Ode owner determine the pedigree of his/her banjo? The partial answer is to examine the instrument for identifying signatures of the manufacturer. Sales continued to be meager, and Baldwin went bankrupt by 1980.Īs the production of Baldwin/Ode banjos was located in three different sites within about two years, each factory inherited hundreds of parts from the previous plant. As the Gretsch instrument brand was then owned by Baldwin, production of Baldwin/Ode banjos was moved to the Gretsch factory in Booneville, Arkansas, in 1970. Sales were not brisk, despite corporate marketers soon adding the cherished `Ode` subscript to the peghead beneath the `Baldwin’ banner. Production of the new Baldwin line remained in Colorado for two years, and then the factory was moved to De Queen, Arkansas, in 1968. In 1966, Chuck Ogsbury in Boulder, Colorado, sold his Ode banjo enterprise to the Baldwin Company.
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