There were many more mandolins than banjos made. But after Steve asked Henry to buy him out of Gibson, the Flats left as soon as Steve was gone. To get him, Steve became a minor shareholder in Gibson, and as such, Henry had to continue the Flatiron production due to contracts. Gibson owner Henry Jusciewicz was never interested in any of the Flairon products, even though they were all very successful. All are relatively rare- I believe total production was less than 300 banjos in all, and with no doubt, the Big Horn is the most rare of all of them. Only 2 were made using Mastertone construction design.
The flatiron mandolin company professional#
All were professional quality instruments priced competitively with the other US makers of the time, and were not made like Mastertones. Most were the Montana Rose models, followed by the Sliver Bow. None of the Flatiron banjos were produced in anything resembling large quantity. It's the same in dimension to the Mastertone, but differed in the alloy mix, as the Mastertone mix was proprietary. and was centrifugally cast in the identical method to the Mastertone ring. The tone ring used was made by Rick Kulesh Sr. All the inlays were always abalone, and all the parts except for the tone ring were identical to the Earl Scruggs Gibson. The Big Horn was the top of the Flatiron banjo line. Ren Ferguson designed them, and Ren made banjos as well as guitars in California before he moved to Montana and joined the Flatiron company. I can honestly say this about the Big Horns: Carlson would not lie, as he was very proud of his banjo line, but he may be honestly mistaken, and so could I. So- I'm neither saying I'm right or that Steve is. As far as I know, he's not playing the banjo anymore, but was a member of the Bozeman Mandolin Society, a large mando concert group, for many years. They eventually went back to Bozeman, but Eric never returned to Gibson again. She got a school teaching job there, and they lived there for about 4 years or longer. He left Gibson shortly after I did, around early 1991, to go to Japan with his wife and family. After Steve left, Eric alone did all the Flatiron banjos assembly and setup, and when he wasn't working on the banjos, he also would work on the Flatiron mandolins and the guitars.Įric, if anyone, most likely has more knowledge of the Big Horn numbers of anyone else. He moved aback and forth between Finish and Setup, and was, at times, the Finish dept. When he went into the Gibson organization as part of the Flatiron crew, he didn't do any of the wood working. There were only 2 people who oversaw the banjo production in Montana one was Steve, who is a banjoist, and the other was Eric Lange, an excellent banjoist and a long-time original Flatiron employee.Įric could everything. Since Steve was committing himself to Steinburger then, he could have been unaware of the few other Big Horns that may have gone through. Steinburger was the popular headless guitar that was widely played in the 80s. He was sent by Henry to New York, to try to pull the Steinburger electric guitars out of that division's death spiral. While I really respect Steve Carlson- always have, always will- I can also say that Steve, during a period of about 9-10 months, wasn't involved in the Montana division.
It could well be I saw the same Big Horn twice, once before it left, and later, when it went through the line for finish repair and/or re-buffing.
The NAMM instruments get more wear and tear on them than most folks might think, as they are handled and played a lot for the week of the show, and after going to NAMM myself, I can attest that they are not always handled carefully or with respect. It's very possible the banjo came back to the factory afterwards. I distinctly remember working on that one along with several others, all going to the show. One was definitely a NAMM show banjo, intended for the Winter NAMM show of Jan. While I recollect more than 2 Big Horns, it's very possible that only 2-3 more than only 2 were made They only came into the finish dept., where I worked, one at a time, and they very seldom appeared. It's been 25 years since I worked at Gibson Montana when the Flatiron banjos were being made there.
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