Re: Savana Banjo Mandolin
Well, here's a lot of info on Rose, Morris & Co. and their Savana brand, which apparently was applied to everything from ukulele banjos to phongraphs. The excellent "British Banjo Makers" pages on whitetrees.com, which used to be a gold mine of info on UK builders, are apparently gone.
What else to say about the instrument? It's a fairly common English style, with a bolt-on resonator, "top tension" head adjustment, and a smaller "pot" than many US mandolin banjos. You've got some significant cracking of the headstock, though apparently not enough to disable it structurally, and the mandolin banjo as a type, doesn't command high market prices now.
If I were valuing it in the US, I'd feel happy to get $200 for it, with its worn but somewhat interesting soft-shell case. The mandolin banjo had a vogue between, say, WWI and 1930, and then its popularity waned, leaving thousands of instruments to languish in closets and the back rooms of pawnshops. I own a couple, don't play them all that much, but like having them for the occasional ragtime or jug band application. If you like playing it, I'd get that headstock looked at by a repair shop, before you get a worse split that would necessitate a more serious repair.
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
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