I have a Bacon Professional on its way, though it will need considerable restoration to make it playable. Looking at the pictures, I have a hard time believing that it came out of the banjo factory at Groton. I know it's been discussed a few times, but I'm curious to hear any new insight.
I've seen it posited that these were built by Regal or Lyon & Healy. While Bacon did source their guitars from Regal, that was about 10 years later and this doesn't really look like the handiwork of either company. One source says they were built by Gretsch, but I'm not sure if they were even building mandolins yet in 1921 - certainly not ones of this caliber. That leaves Vega - which I find a lot more plausible due to stylistic details and geographic proximity - and any number of small Boston or NYC shops. From what I've seen, it's possible that there were several builders, at least for the Amateur model.
Have I missed any possible builders, or any info out there?
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