August 14th, 2023

Hello friends,

On Sunday we pointed trusty "Vanna Blue" towards the rising sun and headed East…to the Hudson River and to Massachusetts….and to old friends. We were on an instrument hunt… banjos to be specific, but more than that we were on our way to renew old friendships. This instrument business has given me friendships which have lasted over 50 years. The banjo does that kind of thing to you…it  fosters camaraderie….

     When I got my first banjo 51 years ago, I needed some instruction books. In one book I came across a picture of an S. S. Stewart piccolo banjo. I never knew such a thing existed. It peaked my interest and we were expecting our first child shortly….it would be perfect for a child! It would be a couple years down the line, but I went on a quest to find a piccolo banjo. Now there was a magazine that instrument fanatics used to advertise and sell their products. It was called "Mugwumps" and it was published by Michael Holmes. It brought many of us together, those who bought, sold, traded and collected fretted instruments. All the shops were listed there around New England…iconic places. Eventually I embarked on a little tour, taking me to Rhode Island’s Music Man, and Providence, Guitar and Banjo, Fretted Instrument Workshop in Amherst, MA and of course the venerable Music Emporium in Boston. The entire way I drooled over instruments that I thought I would never be able to obtain. It was at Providence Guitar and Banjo, as I recall, that I was chatting with Len Colson, the co-owner. I had asked him if he’d ever seen a Stewart piccolo banjo and he said he thought that Billy Voiers in western Massachusetts had one. He had a card with an address on it and I was off to the Berkshires in search of a piccolo banjo. When I arrived at the address, I knocked at the door and asked if Mr. Voiers was there. A very attractive young woman answered and immediately slammed the door in my face and said, "he doesn’t live here anymore"…and that was the end of it until many years later. I was at Dave’s Stutzman’s store in Rochester and I noticed a business card on his shelf. It said W. D. Voiers instrument purveyor. I asked Dave if I could have that card and I sent Mr. Voiers a note that I was looking for a piccolo banjo, but he told me it was long gone. We did, however, make a nice connection. Over the years we attended trade shows together, and Billy would come to stay at my house when he was setting up at the Buffalo guitar show and we just developed a great relationship…. as I look back it has blossomed over the past 50 years from the seedling to  the friendship of a strong Oak tree.

So our first stop on the journey was to see “Billy Voiers” and spend time with him and catch up on things, trade a few instruments and get his expertise on some rare violins which I have had stashed away. Over the years, Billy has provided me with over one thousand instruments to sell on our list and later our website and then later our store. Ours is a steadfast relationship….based on mutual respect, honesty and downright love…

Today we head across, Massachusetts to catch up with the greatest of all banjo collectors, the one and only Jim Bollman. We will talk banjos, the state of the market, the interest in old instruments, and certainly have a nice seafood dinner in Boston. Cheers to old friends….we sit on the park bench like bookends….

With love,

John Bernunzio

Central NY landscape