These dowel sticks came from a guy who used to deal in used Bacon & Day banjos back in the 1970s and it came to us in a batch of miscellaneous banjo parts. He focused on tenor and plectrum Silver Bell models that were the rage among Dixieland and Ragtime players back when guys wore straw hats, white shirts with sleeve garters, and terrorized family pizza parlors with endless flat-picked banjo racket that sounded vaguely like "Hello Dolly."  

All four sticks are maple, and none have been drilled for a tailpiece hanger, and all have the B & D SILVER BELL stamps as shown.  Two are stamped No. 1 and two are stamped with just a No. with no model number. We're assuming these are reproductions, but the stamping is slightly different on each stick so it’s possible one or two of these MIGHT be leftover parts from when a hurricane flattened Bacon’s Groton Connecticut factory in the fall of 1938 or perhaps from the later era when Bacon was owned by Gretsch (Brooklyn). It’s best to assume these are reproductions and bid accordingly. All measure 10 1/2 inches long excluding the dowel portion. One is slightly warped. 

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