Rally Banjo Uke Revisited

Now that I've returned my Gold Tone soprano banjolele, I'm desperately searching for something else to satisfy my itching for a banjo uke. On a whim, I placed a $75 bid on a Rally Banjolele selling on eBay...and lost. Today, I received a notification that there's another one on eBay with a $1.29 starting price. Unable to resist, but unwilling to play the bidding game, I immediately placed another $75 maximum bid, which would bring my total price (with shipping) to $135.

I know it's not a very popular banjolele model, but it sounds fairly decent on the one YouTube demo I've seen. Before I bid another cent above $75, does anybody have anything to say about the Rally DUB-2 (not 2-F)? Please do not recommend other brands at this time, as I'm trying to stay focused!

As a bit of background, I am a fairly good ukulele player, at best, and play rhythm, exclusively. My finger picking is getting there, but having been a drummer all my life, my large motor coordination is a lot better than my small motor coordination. At this point in the game, I can get around the first five frets like lightning, but I don't know gaga about any of the chord positions above that. It seems I might have to work on that in order to make a banjo uke really "sing." The George Formby strums (except the damned triplets) come easy to me, but the Earl Scruggs stuff is a little rougher. For these reasons, I feel like a banjo uke will only be an occasional toy for me and doesn't warrant an expenditure over $150.

So, does the Rally sound like a good choice?

You might want to wait just a little while longer and see what's unveiled at NAMM.

I bought a Rally from E-bay and am really happy with it. Not sure what model I bought and I forget who the seller was, but if your auction is from Taiwan then it's the same person. In my opinion, it is a quality product for the price. Needs a little set up, but I can't complain; got mine for $200 with delivery.

Just some notes on bidding...it's almost always better to bid at the last minute...if someone puts in a $70 bid now, he immediately sees that you've outbid him, and has plenty of time to give in to his UAS and bid higher. The later you bid, the less chance there is that someone will outbid you.

Second evil note on bidding...try to avoid nice round numbers. If you put your top bid at $77, you win out of the fellow who bid $75, and the sneaking person who bid $76.

Great bidding advice for a not-so-skilled eBay player. I just didn't want to sit in front of my computer for the next couple of weeks watching this item. I figure they will contact me when I've been outbid and, if there's time, I will consider adding a few bucks. If not, it looks as if Taismlu(sp?), the seller from Taiwan, is going to be listing these for auction for a while.

Yeah, that seller has them up all the time. When I bought mine it was only a "Buy Now" price. They're up for auction now?

>>>>They're up for auction now? <<<<

Yes. The most recent one started at $1.29! Given that the last one sold for about $110, I doubt I will be able to get this one for $75.

Don't be too sure; when multiple listings go up for the same instrument within a couple of days or weeks, later auctions tend to go for less since the top bidder(s) is gone. Four identical Gibson UB-1s were up within two weeks of each other, and they went for $512, $523, $395 and $265 respectively over time. Two ($512 and $265) were from from the same dealer, who essentially flooded his own market. I wonder what goes through some sellers' minds sometimes!

I was just outbid by $1.00, which makes this thread relevant again. Should I go any higher than $75 (considering shipping will be $60)?

Papa Tom said:

I was just outbid by $1.00, which makes this thread relevant again. Should I go any higher than $75 (considering shipping will be $60)?

Click to expand...

That's up to you. Personally, I wouldn't go any higher on a wild card like that...even with a reasonable shipping charge. Ultimately, it's your call. But I would wait for the last few seconds and put in your highest bid.

Don't forget: if you don't like THIS one, you'll have to pay another $60 to ship it back.

soupking said:

Don't forget: if you don't like THIS one, you'll have to pay another $60 to ship it back.

Click to expand...

You're right. I was kind of resigned to the fact that, for $135 (rather than $315) I would just live with the instrument, no matter how imperfect it turned out to be. But I think I'm going to wait until I can actually sit down and play one of these things before I plunk down any money...UNLESS I can get the Rally for $1.29 the next time it's listed!

Why you should avoid games. Bid highest price you are willing to pay and hope for the best. Sooner or later, youll snag one. My son just bid $100 for a curly maple, spruce top long neck soprano and won. Some times you win, sometimes you lose.

Rally is the brand name for the Dae Won factory (Korean owned but I think the actual factory is now in China)
here is thier website - http://www.straus.co.kr/banjos.htm
In addition to making thier own Rally branded Kit they make a lot of stuff that gets rebranded. I have seen then re branded as Barnes & Mullins, Countryman by Hofner, Tonewood and so on in fact I have been reliably informed the Gold Tone Resonator Range body is the Rally Dub 1 maple body (but i don't know if they make the necks too) Its almost a game to look for other banjo and uke banjoes then see it if you can pick it out of this catalogue.

The guy that is selling them, I am very familier with. As most of you know, I have done some work with Bruce Wei. I have also done some work with the guy selling these. His name is Sam, and he and Bruce work very closely together, and both of them are very good guys. They sell a pretty decent product, and are very helpful. I do not know anything about the banjole he is selling, but I have considered getting one myself. I have purchased a few ukes and parts from him. He is very fast in shipping (from accross the globe, about a week). I would not heisitate to bid on any of Sam's auctions if that helps.

I actually have a Rally Banjo uke. Recorded it for the audio in this video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG36H4TuBvE

It was a very very good value purchase, that included hardcase.... EXCEPT mine got rattled up during shipping, and caused the neck to curve.
So I have an annoying fret buzz on a few frets of the A string.

Notified the seller, and he mailed me some higher action bridges, to see if that fixes it.
No success, and so I got a fair partial refund to make up for the defect.

Overall I'm happy. If I didn't get a defective one, it would be an EXCELLENT banjo uke.

I was loking at another thread about buying a Banjolele after this one and the chap in that was talking about buying an Eddy Finn or a Morgan Monroe. I hadn't come across these makes before being from the UK so i had a quick look at them on the Internet. The Eddy Finn EF-BU1f Banjo Uke is a rebadged Rally Dub1f, the Eddy Finn EF-BU2f Banjo Uke is a rebadged Rally Dub2f, the Eddy Finn EF-BU1 Banjo Uke is a Rally Dub1 and so on. If you have seen edy finn's and liked them well but for the mname on the head that is what you would be buying.

Ref new posts to this thread. Got a little confused, but will highly suggest that if you are in the market for a Banjo Uke try them out before making a decision.
If that is not possible I would review this:
http://ukeeku.com/?s=banjo+ukes+reviews

I would also suggest listening to every sound bite you can find.
Good luck!

Never seen or heard a Rally banjolele..but why didn't you like the Gold Tone soprano?

Bouzoukiboy16 said:

Never seen or heard a Rally banjolele..but why didn't you like the Gold Tone soprano?

Click to expand...

Holly dead thread batman. Your a new guy so I will welcome you first.

There is a LOT of talk about Rally banjolele's on this forum. TO be honest, Rally and Gold Tone Banjolele's seem to come out of the same factory so this is a question of different models rather than different manufacturers.

Anthony