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Antique 5-string Zither Banjo (likely 1890s - 1910s) - $200 (Bellingham)
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The English invented the 'zither banjo' which is essentially a small head banjo with a built in resonator and a neck that uses a tunneled 5th string and slot-head tuners. Though it has 6 tuners, it is a 5-string banjo and was always meant to be – as the straight-through banjo tuning pegs weren't available in England at the time, they used classical guitar tuners - and since those were geared they actually held the strings in tune better than the friction pegs used by American banjos of the day). One of the tuning slots is empty. The really neat thing about these zither banjos is the tunneled 5th string. At the 5th fret, the string goes into a little tunnel, goes under the fingerboard and emerges at the tuning machines. No weird tuner bump to get in your way as you move up and down the fingerboard!
The whole pot mechanism is pretty cool, it is a 'top-tension' design that can have the head tension adjusted without removing the resonator. The resonator is a smooth, shapely carved wooden design that feels much more comfortable in the lap than a bunch of metal brackets do, or for that matter the sharp-edged resonators used by gibson and most modern makers. I bet part of the drive to create the resonators for these was to keep all the metal hardware from getting caught in the fancy dresses of victorian English ladies. The fact that it boosted volume was an added bonus. The head size is 8 1/2", so even with the resonator on it doesn't feel like a large banjo. It's strung with nylon, and has a 27" scale which sounds great with nylon strings. Clear and crisp. There is a little bow in the neck, but with nylon strings it doesn't make fretting it difficult. Banjo makers at the time actually intentionally created some relief in the neck to prevent string buzzing. The nylon strings are easy on the fingers, and are closer to the original sound of banjos like this, which were originally strung with gut and silk and very thin steel.
The bad: There's a bit of wear and a ding in the headstock. The tuners are stiff, and some of the tuner buttons are a little cracked, but they do turn and they hold in tune. There's a little wood dowel by the tailpiece to support the strings, though it probably doesn't need to stay there if you don't put steel strings on it.
You can play any sort of banjo music on it, though it's not exactly going to produce the same sorts of sounds or volume as you'd expect to hear in a bluegrass banjo context for instance. But it's great to learn on and it'd be a great first instrument or second instrument to have a nylon-strung banjo in addition to a steel one.
All in all, hard to argue with the value – a genuine antique instrument that's less than the price of a mostly plastic banjo made in east Asia. I've been acquiring and fixing up affordable banjos and trying to get them out into the hands of people who want to play. If you're looking for a banjo, let me know, I have a number of them for sale, including some not yet posted. I could likely find one that's a good fit for you. And I teach lessons also.
For the curious, there's some music written for the Zither Banjo by its finest champion, Alfred Cammeyer. Some recordings exist on youtube played by Rob MacKillop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JSEnmwXVLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htW_DqFJoog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM63UeDIFgQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDB7BB5-uuo
His banjo is essentially like this one, but with fancier appointments.