Ukulele Banjo Prices?

Why are Ukulele Banjo's so expensive? It's a 4 string instrument the size of a Ukulele which looks like a banjo.

A normal 4/5 string banjo is actually cheaper. I live in the UK and there's a shop I go into in Manchester and their Ukelele Banjo is about £203 while a normal 5 string banjo costs £112

Why is this?

phil8715 said:

Why are Ukulele Banjo's so expensive? It's a 4 string instrument the size of a Ukulele which looks like a banjo.

A normal 4/5 string banjo is actually cheaper. I live in the UK and there's a shop I go into in Manchester and their Ukelele Banjo is about £203 while a normal 5 string banjo costs £112

Why is this?

Click to expand...

Any 5-string in that price range is junk.

Agreed. I'd expect most banjo ukes to be, on the whole, more expensive than many ukes, purely because of number of parts (I'm not including luthier built ukes in that comparison).

But full size banjos are more common, hence the bulk manufacturers can work with unit costs and offer them cheaper. Earl jam is right though, a full size banjo of that price will be pretty poor. I used to own an entry model Deering Banjo and it cost £600.

Check out Gold Tone. Their lower priced Banjo ukes are good quality. I bought my BUC for $314 USD. (£229.8480) My CC-OT 5 string was $375 (£274.5000). a Starter banjo but good quality.
http://www.goldtone.com/products/w/c/90/Banjo-Ukuleles

agree with all off the comments above. If you want to play a cheap banjo come see mine, my dad got it years ago, and it didn't cost much whatsoever. The neck wobbles and the tuning machines don't turn without pliers for leverage. Going along with bazmaz said, now that banjo ukes are becoming more common again, the price is dropping, the seem to be the uke fad of the year, with lots of companies producing them recently. A big choice is, do i want a full back and resonator or an open back. Open back banjoleles tend to be cheaper. I have a lanikai banjo which runs around $550 USD but i've played the mainland (mainlandukes.com) which is a solid back, without a proper resonator, and they are a steal! it sounds as good as my more expensive one, and costs around $325. Also flea makes one, and the morgan monroe ukes available at mimsukes.com are also in the $300 price range and very nice! I don't think you can get a banjo uke worth having for much less than $300, but you can't get a full banjo worth having for less than $900 in reality

Happy plinkin and plunkin
Alex