Baldwin Ode Banjo Serial Numbers
[ Company History: 123 4 567 | ODE Instruments | Historic OME Instruments (find your old banjo) ]
CO: About that same time, Baldwin was expanding, looking into possibly purchasing the Salstrom Banjo Company of Oregon, Illinois. On the day the Baldwin execs were touring Salstrom, there happened to be a banjo collector there name Clyde Richelieu.Clyde was very knowledgeable about banjos, and a strong ODE fan. He mentioned to the Baldwin people that he felt ODE was a superior instrument, and Baldwin ended buying ODE while Salstrom was later purchased by Fender. A few years later, Richelieu purchased Strom Banjos of Brainard, Minnesota, and started building Richelieu banjos in Oregon, Wisconsin, where the company still operates under Rick Tipple.
In fact it doesn’t even have a serial number. It has all the specs of a pre-Baldwin/ODE banjo but already with the Baldwin banner in the headstock. This is a great banjo. Walnut, sturdy construction, plays like a dream and can’t argue with the tone.hardshell case included. There is a shim to make action lower but is unnecessary IMHO. Only selling to fund another purchase. Serial number is 2993-6(I think) SRSoundCloud file attached. Historic OME Instruments Company History: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ODE Instruments Historic OME Instruments (find your old banjo) Find your banjo's serial number below.
Baldwin Ode Banjo Serial Numbers List Printable
Feb 06, 2011 Baldwin continued to use it until ca. 1971, but seems to have modified it, and when they did, Baldwin left a 1000 number gap in the sequence. Shortly after 71, they went to the system they used until the end. The paper labeled banjo serial system has more info as to what the banjo is, but it doesn't say how many were made over a year's production. All new banjos come with a nut driver to tighten the head and truss rod, extra set of strings, set-up instructions, railroad spikes on frets 7,8,9 and 10 (extras upon request) and a hard shell case. To order a banjo please email sherry@stellingbanjo.com or call 434-295-1917. Please contact us to build a new banjo just for you.
At that point I was ready for a change. I decided to get rid of everything I had except a banjo and an old car and a guitar, and hit the road (laughs).
CO: After selling ODE, I ended up traveling for a while, wandering around the country, drifting. I’d found a home for the ODE company, which was Baldwin. They were good folks to deal with, had a lot of connections in Nashville. they tried their best to get me to work for them, which I did for six months, to help with the transition so they knew how to do what we’d been doing. But I had been tied down for too long, and I felt a need to change.
Baldwin kept the company in Boulder for two years. Then they moved it to DeQueen, Arkansas, in 1968. I tried to find out how many banjos Baldwin produced, but no luck. They made the Ode between about 1966 and 1968 in Boulder, and then in Arkansas from 1968 till they quit, which was somewhere possibly in the early 1980’s.
At that time I was in engineering school at the university. We’d take a coffee break between classes. I remember walking from the engineering area into the cafeteria next door. You had to go through this place called the Timberline Lounge where the mountaineering people hung out. There was a lady playing guitar and singing, and some guy playing the banjo. It just totally blew me away. Actually, the “lady” turned out to be Judy Collins. I don’t know who the banjo player was but that incident inspired me to start playing the guitar again.
Baldwin Ode Banjo Serial Numbers
BNL: Didn’t they eventually sell the ODE to the Gretsch Company?
CO: Baldwin owned Gretsch then! Baldwin had been making only pianos and organs. Then they got into this corporate mode of expansion. They bought Burns Guitar of the UK, Sho-Bud Pedal Steel, an electronic harpsichord company, Gretsch and others. Their idea was to create a full-line music business the quick way, by purchasing all these companies and then introducing them into their piano and organ chain divisions. They were apparently quite successful. Baldwin was also heavily into electronics. They got into military contracts, making guidance systems for Sidewinder missiles. Finally, they got into banking, because in the piano and organ business, you sold things on time payment plans. It became financing. First, financing pianos and organs, all the way into buying banks.
CO: Yes. They ended up, I believe, buying several banks, including the Empire Savings and Loan in Denver. They expanded big, buisness-wise with the banking thing. But apparently, they over-expanded and had to declare bankruptcy. This, however, wasn’t because of the instrument business and it probably had nothing to do with the banjo busniess. The banjo part was probably the one-tenth of one percent of their whoe business. They had several thousand people working for them. The banjo company might have had five or maybe ten workers. When they went Chapter Eleven, they started liquidating things and ended up selling the ODE Banjo division, which was part of Baldwin-Gretsch.
An interesting point: when Baldwin bought the company from me in 1966, they designed a banner that said “Baldwin”. They didn’t use the word, “ODE” on the peghead originally. However, they found that the market did not want a Baldwin: it wanted an ODE. So, they added the word “ODE” to the banner. Then I herad they eventually dropped Baldwin and just put ODE on the peghead. In fact, I just saw one downstairs (at the vendors’ stands), an ODE, with no word “Baldwin” on it, but it was made by Baldwin about 1980. So, the sequence of logos was “Baldwin”, then “Baldwin ODE”, then just “ODE”. I should have checked the serial number of that one I just saw.
CO: No. When Baldwin liquidated in the early 1980’s, there was an intermediate party that bought up Gretsch, or had the job or liquidating it. As I understand it, things just got destroyed and even the intermediate party went bankrupt. I heard Fred Gretsch Junior ended up buying back the Gretsch name and whatever came with it.
BNL: One of the music shops I frequent has a new Gretsch catalogue, full of fancy guitars, but no banjos.
CO: I don’t know if Gretsch builds any instruments now, or only imports them. Apparently, Gretsch bought out Bacon and Day in the Forties. So ODE is now part of Gretsch and Bacon and Day (laughs). The name ODE continues, but only the name, evrything else is gone.
BNL: So, when did you come up with the idea of OME?
Posted -: 19:51:26 Hi Laurence -- 1. What is the SERIAL number on it? It should be stamped into the inside wall of the rim.
The serial format should be one of the following: 2SR – xxx 2SR – xxx – G 2SR – xxxx – G 2. Does it have the gear adjustment hole -- in the heel? When Baldwin bought ODE, in 1966 -- they kept using Chuck's original vendors, to make all of the parts. So, all of the 'ODE' stampings remained on the metal work -- right up until the very end.
Baldwin Guitars and Amplifiers. So you kind of have to go by the evidence: September ’65 to ’66: dual-logo and glued-on Baldwin-logo. Early ’66 to mid/late ’66: transitional models with old Burns-style heads and engraved Baldwin logos. Late ’66 to ’70: new.
Ode Banjo History
The aluminum rims were die-cast -- with the molded-in words: ' Boulder -- ODE -- Colorado' along with 'model' and 'Grade' Those words were never eliminated from the mold -- even though the banjos were being made in Arkansas, starting in mid-1968. That has caused a tremendous amount of confusion over the years. (There is an also an apocryphal story circulating -- that the aircraft-grade aluminum, used in the ODE rims was obtained from crashed German Stuka dive bombers! You're from London. Ever hear of that tale?;-) Since yours has ONLY the 'Baldwin' banner (with no ODE) -- it was made sometime from mid-1966 to '72 or '73. I'm still trying to tie-down a tighter date for the change to 'Baldwin + ODE'. I've documented an original purchase receipt, dated 7/7/71 -- for Baldwin DS--21xx-GE.
Best-- Ed Britt ••• A good fiddle tune will bring two or more people together who might otherwise be enemies. ••• Edited by - BrittDLD1 on 06:53:45. Posted -: 10:14:59 Hi, Laurence.
Baldwin never revised the casting mold for the aluminum rims after they bought the Ode Co. The cast ODE, Boulder, Colorado letters have caused endless confusion ever since. Your banjo was made in Arkansas. Without the hole in the heel, it's early. Your banjo could have been made in early 1969, and not sold until you bought it a couple of years later. Your banjo is one of the first designs that came from the buyout.
Chuck Ogsbury had a bewildering variety of different tone rings available in his aluminum rimmed banjos, and Baldwin eliminated them. They simply used the rim and installed a brass cap on the inner lip, which sounded good and was much easier to produce. The Grade 2 banjos were the first to be made in the Arkansas factory. The Grade 2 banjos were also the most consistent from first to last, with the fewest changes.
Baldwin was not in cahoots with Burns guitars- they owned Burns, and adopted the Burns geared truss rod to the banjo line after your banjo was made. The Stuka story came from early Ode catalog's description of the aircraft grade aluminum the used for the rim. If you think about it, the story really makes no sense, but it's exactly the kind of voodoo that folks like to pass on. Baldwin never changed other parts with Ode stamped on them, even when the banjos only bore the Baldwin ribbon. Anyone's guess is as good as any other as to why they continued to stamp the parts, but eventually, the Baldwin management realized that Ode was a better known name in the banjo community than Baldwin would ever be, so they dropped the Baldwin name. Regards, Stanger The pen is mightier than the pigs.
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Posted -: 10:56:57 quote: Originally posted by Laurence Diehl Hi Ed - The only serial number to be found is 310. This is not in the format you describe - prehaps I should look again? And no, there is no hole in the heel.
Photo here: Well. CONGRATULATIONS, Laurence!
Baldwin Ode Banjo Serial Numbers List Printable
You have a genuine BOULDER-made Baldwin. Probably made between late-1966, and late-1967.
(Just call it a '67.) The earliest production Baldwin I've documented, so far, is #212 -- a Style 2 standard-length 5-string openback. It was all in one piece when it sold on ebay in March 2006. By Sept 2007, the peghead had been snapped off it -- and it was back on ebay.
Bobby Thompson's Style D was #294 -- so yours might have been part of the same litter. Almost certainly in the shop at the same time. Now that I have your serial -- I found my previous file, from when you first posted it on the ODE Group. Does yours have a pearl banner?
Or the aluminum one? The 'flower' on the peghead is probably NOT factory original. (They didn't do much factory custom work on the Baldwins -- especially the Style 2's.) Best- Ed Britt ••• A good fiddle tune will bring two or more people together who might otherwise be enemies. ••• Edited by - BrittDLD1 on 11:03:55. Posted -: 14:54:40 Hi, Laurence. The move from Boulder to Arkansas was a big one, and wasn't done all at once.
Ode Banjo
It's possible that it took the Baldwin organization some time to get organized, so your banjo may have lingered in the shop, ready to ship, for some time while dealerships were established, etc. Another possibility is Baldwin using your banjo as part of their introduction process. They made some small batches that went around to NAMM shows, dealer seminars, and just shown about by their sales people, who packed samples with them. And then, it might have hung in the store where you bought it for some time after all this.