1922 Fairbanks/Vega Tubaphone Style X, No. 9 Tenor Banjo # 49359

The best of the Vega-Fairbanks models can be viewed as the first of the truly modern banjos. They are as fine in quality as any produced since. George Gruhn, Frets, 1979.

The quality of these [Fairbanks/Vega] banjos, especially with the Whyte Laydie and Tubaphone tone rings, has set the standard for all open-backed banjos made since then. Bollman et al., Pickin’, June, 1978.

The Fairbanks and Vega Companies

A.C. Fairbanks. The Fairbanks/Vega Company is one of several venerable banjo manufacturers active in the Boston area in the late 1800's and early 1900's. A. C. Fairbanks was a virtuoso banjo player who also made instruments, first in an 1880 partnership with William A. Cole as Fairbanks & Cole (located on Boston’s Tremont St.) and, following a falling-out with Cole in 1890, under his own name. (For information on early Fairbanks banjos, visit this excellent site.)

Above, A. C. Fairbanks in the 1880's, and a Fairbanks & Cole catalog cover.

David L. Day. A key figure in both the Fairbanks & Cole and the A. C. Fairbanks companies was David L. Day, who was hired in 1883. He is one of the most important individuals in the history of American banjo design and manufacture. During his tenure with various banjo companies, they each achieved their apotheosis of design, quality, and innovation. Day is the person responsible for many of the accomplishments associated with the Fairbanks and Vega/Fairbanks banjos. In 1896, A. C. Fairbanks left the company bearing his name and Day assumed a leadership role as general manager and sales manager. The "business side" of Fairbanks appears to have been the responsibility of Frank Dodge and David Cummings, who were listed as its principals, but the decisions concerning design and construction were clearly the purview of Day.

Vega acquires Fairbanks. After a devastating fire at A. C. Fairbanks and Company’s Washington Street location in 1904, the company was sold to Boston’s Vega Company (named after a star in the constellation Lyra), then located on Sudbury Street. Prior to 1904, Vega had made guitars and mandolins but not banjos. Thus, their purchase of the Fairbanks line was not merely the acquisition of a prestigious name to affix to Vega-designed instruments; it was a transplantation of a highly successful manufacturing operation to new facilities. During the time immediately after Vega’s takeover of Fairbanks, according to a catalog from that era, the parent organization had three separate departments:

The Vega Company "Violins, Mandolins and Guitars; Cases, Strings, Sundry Articles."

The Standard Band Instrument Co. "Cornets, Trombones, Drums, Clarinets, Saxophones, etc."

The A. C. Fairbanks Co. "Banjos and Mandolin-Banjos; Strings, Cases and Sundry Articles."

Direction and operation of banjo manufacturing and marketing was thus largely autonomous from the activities of other departments and virtually unchanged from the pre-takeover structure. In short, Day and the other Fairbanks employees, made the move across town to Vega, where he remained until 1922 as the driving force behind banjo design and construction.

After about 1910, the company appears to have done away with the separate departments and the A. C. Fairbanks name plate was replaced with a dowel stick stamp reading Fairbanks Banjo, Made by the Vega Company. This insignia remained until shortly after the time of Day’s departure; thereafter, the instruments are simply labeled "Vega." (For more information about changes in instrument features, see this site and this one.)  Although experts can detect subtle differences between banjos made before and after the takeover, such as slight alterations in peghead size and the discontinuation of a red veneer used by Fairbanks on certain models, the banjos from both sources are acknowledged to be of equivalent quality and craftsmanship. In 1922, Day left Vega to join the Bacon Banjo Co. of Groton, Connecticut where he continued to design and market banjos with great success (e.g., the renowned B&D Silver Bell line).

Day’s design innovations: Whyte Laydie and Tubaphone. Before leaving Vega, Day developed and patented several important innovations that have become synonymous with Fairbanks/Vega banjos. Among these are two tone ring designs. The first, originally used on the so-called "Electric" model instruments, was a design consisting of a shallow crown-like scalloped metal hoop, placed on top of the wooden rim, having a metal tube resting on the "crown" peaks. This tube, in turn, supported the instrument’s head. In 1901, he developed the Whyte Laydie line of banjos featuring this scalloped tone ring plus a countersunk bracket band that allowed bracket shoes to be held in place without drilling through the rim to attach them. The second Day tone ring design consisted of a hollow bell brass ring with a square cross-section and perforations on its inner surface (see accompanying graphic). This tone ring, and the instruments it graced, was termed the Tu-ba-phone. The hyphens were included to encourage pronouncing the name as "too ba phone" and not "tub a phone." Currently, most players, collectors, and dealers have dropped the hyphens, referring to these instruments simply as Tubaphones. Tubaphones made their first appearance in 1909 and also featured the Day bracket band used on the Whyte Laydie. The Whyte Laydie and Tubaphone lines were Fairbanks/Vega’s finest professional quality banjos, each offered in a relatively plain (No. 2 and No. 3, respectively) and very ornate (No. 7 and No. 9, respectively) model. The Whyte Laydie No. 7 and Tubaphone No. 9, with the exception of the rarer Tubaphone Deluxe models (discussed below), where the top banjos offered by Fairbanks/Vega.

Above, images showing Day's Whyte Laydie and Tubaphone tone ring designs.

Above, cross-section of Tubaphone pot assembly.

Although associated primarily with banjos, Day also was the creator of Vega's cylinder-back mandolin.  

 Updated 4/14/02