Before we ever made a Gitjo, we made quite a few 5 string, traditional style open back banjos- including the worlds first koa banjo - wow was it beautiful. However, after Jeremy invented our version of the guitar banjo, the Gitjo, its popularity forced us to place 5 string banjos on the back burner for a while. In 2007, our friend Alan Ransenberg of Portland, Oregon, asked us to make him a special open back 5 string as a 50th birthday present to himself. Alan has spent the last 25 years designing, planning, and fabricating exhibits for museums. He also spent a large amount of that time collecting and playing banjos. In short, he is a banjo player with a sense of style. How's that for an oxymoron?

Working from our existing design, with ideas from Alan, we came up with what we felt was a great design. We have since tweeked everything a little, and added a really cool scroll design at the scoop. We have augmented the Lame Horse inlay (at the 5th fret on the 5 string as opposed to the 1st fret on the Gitjo) with a peghead inlay which gives the instrument its name - the Shooting Star.

The first production Shooting Star Banjos will be shown at the Healdsburg festival this summer.