Mandolin-banjo common in stores. Morgan Monroe has recently made three models, the MM-MB1 Mandolin Banjo the MM-MB2 Mandolin Banjo, and the Banjolin DLX (8 strings). The Morgan Monroe banjos look like traditional mandolin-banjos and have wooden resonators. The Cumbus model has a spun aluminum resonator. Prices currently range from around US $150 to US $700. In Italy, Musikalia manufactures three models of Mandolin Banjo, always with wooden resonator (mahogany, padouk or maple root wood veneered), animal skin, but gives an alternative between simple or double aluminium ring. Most instruction books concentrate on either the mandolin or the banjo. Mandolinists need more
Mandolin called a cylinder-back mandolin manufactured by the Vega Company between 1913 and roughly 1927), which had a similar longitudinal bulge but on the back rather than the front of the instrument. The mandolin was given a banjo body in an 1882 patent by Benjamin Bradbury of Brooklyn and given the name "banjolin" by John Farris in 1885. Today "banjolin" describes an instrument with four strings, while the version with the four courses of double strings is called a "mandolin-banjo". A resonator mandolin or "resophonic mandolin" is a mandolin whose sound is produced by one or more metal cones (resonators) instead