Vinnie Mondello: Bringing Old Banjos Back To Life

(How I Got Started)

by Vinnie Mondello as told to D Lee Thomas

I had the opportunity to visit with Vinnie Mondello in his shop in my native East Texas near Longview in July of 2005. Vinnie is a luthier delux who specializes in restoring pre-thirty banjos.He comes by it honestly, as both his Grandfather and Dad were professional banjo players. Vinnie plays a pretty mean tenor banjo, although he always down plays his picking. He is well known in the four string arena as a restoration specialists and is also working his magic on five strings and conversions as his business grows and flexes. He believes that "rigidity will kill your luthier business " I remember his Dad playing at Shakey's Pizza in Longview when I was a kid in the 60's. It was the only time I remember hearing a tenor in East Texas. Vinnie relates that the large contingency of four string players are concentrated on the East and West Coast and tend to be between the ages of 70 and 90. Vinnie has taken a special interest in an up and coming four string player, Tyler Jackson, a music student at North Texas University. With a few more like Tyler, Vinnie believes the four string legacy will live on. After hearing Tyler play, I would have to agree with him.

Vinnie feels a great deal of satisfaction in continuing the family legacy and tradition, restoring the fine instruments of the past to their previous glory. "I like the finish and repair end of the business. I would rather bring something back to life than create a new life."

I did get to ask Vinnie one question and here it is along with an abbreviated answer:

DLT: How did you get started in the banjo repair business?

VM: I helped my dad when he was younger work on banjos. When I was ten, we went to Boston to visit family. John Dipietro was a retired master luthier and had his shop in his cellar. We went to visit Johnny, down in his cellar and it was a huge luthier shop. Violins, basses, guitars, he did it all and he had a banjo section in there. Of course, I was enthralled by it all. He gave me a guitar. He pointed at some instruments and said pick anything over there that you want. Of course, I picked the gaudiest old electric guitar I could find, a DanElectro; I think it was. My Dad looked at me and said, "You could have picked any of those instruments and you picked that?" I replied, "Yeah, but it's got a whammy bar." That visit always stuck in my mind.

Later on, I started foolin' with Dad's banjos. I always liked the way they looked; like a 49 Buick, you know, with all the metal screws and bolts. There were just more interesting than a guitar, which was kinda like a box to me. The mechanical part of the banjo was just interesting to me. Then I was in Austin and went to a citywide garage sale and saw this old banjo case sittin' up high and asked to see it. Turns out it was a Silver Bell serial number 14390. It was all in pieces, but I knew it was a good banjo. I didn't know anything about Bacon, at the time, cause when I grew up it was all Stromberg and Vega. The only other banjo I heard about was Gibson. I called my Dad and told him I had found a Bacon & Day Silver Bell at a garage sale, and he told me Bacon & Day made a good banjo. I told him the man wanted $250.00 for it. He said "What, Two-Fifty for a banjo? That's ridiculous!". I told him it might be worth it for the antique value, and I was going to buy it. I got it and took it home, took it apart and cleaned it up. Sprayed some lacquer on it, put it back together and put on E-bay and it sold for $900.00. I'm thinking that's good. I told Dad, see there, I told you. He said he couldn't believe someone paid $900.00 for a banjo. He said his Stromberg Delux only cost $350.00.

"Vinnie, waiting to recruit potential four string players. He was subsequently, briefly arrested and released for sitting in the flower bed."

That experience rocketed me into the banjo business. I started looking at them on Ebay and I bought some cheap ones that I could learn to work on. I fretted and learned my trade just on junk. I would sell what I fixed up to finance my on-the-job training. Then my first Stromberg Delux came available through a guy my Dad knew. Dad worked in the Stromberg shop and he and Grandpa always played a Stromberg. Steve Spearos had interviewed Dad because he was writing a book on the Stromberg Story. Jim told me that he had a friend with a Stromberg Delux for sale for $3,500.00. To me it was the neatest thing I'd ever seen. I saved the money and ended up buying it. I cleaned it up and put it on the web site for sale for $10,000.00. Within two days, I sold it. The guy that bought it couldn't pay me $10,000.00, but he offered $7,000.00 cash and a 1930 Vega Vox 4 Delux in perfect condition, which I sold quickly for $6,500.00. I thought, man, it can't get any better than this. Of course, little did I know it wouldn't be that good all the time. I did get my start and most of my tools out of that money. I went on from there and bought and sold some banjos on the web and one day a guy on a banjo forum wanted me to restore a banjo he had. That was the first customer to send restoration work. When I got it, it was in bad shape, and I took a long time to fix it. I charged him about $150.00 for about $2,000.00 worth of work. But I was really interested in the reference. He gave me good references. Then the guy who ran the forum sent me banjos to repair and complimented my work, which allowed me to get in the repair business. Then I started taking pictures of the various repair projects so my customers could follow the progress of their banjo from anywhere in the world. That caught on in a big way, but it also takes a lot of time. Half of my work is web work, half of my work is shop work, and the other half, and that's too many halves, is sales.

I just try to expand on the original, operate out of Dairy Queen bathroom, principle. A hamburger joint can be small and still serve a good burger to one customer at a time. I try to keep it small. Then I get guys from Mel Bay who interview me and get people to seek me out.

To contact Vinnie or just learn more about what he does, visit his website at http://www.4stringbanjos.com.