Zim Gar snare - decent price?

[idrum4fun]

Hey OddBall!

Great info. Thanks!

-Mark

[CTMichaelV]

TJL
Sorry to say but way over priced ! I would offer $30 at most in that condition. One of our members just posted a thread about a 50-60's WMP Gretsch Round Badge he paid $80 for. Part of my frustration about the price of MIJ and every seller thinking they are "rare"
Just my humble opinion
Michael

[OddBall]

Originally Posted by CTMichaelV

TJL
Sorry to say but way over priced ! I would offer $30 at most in that condition. One of our members just posted a thread about a 50-60's WMP Gretsch Round Badge he paid $80 for. Part of my frustration about the price of MIJ and every seller thinking they are "rare"
Just my humble opinion
Michael

I also think 120 + was way over the top. $50 tops if you needed to match a kit. The batter hoop is causing rod splay and I don`t think it belongs to the drum.

[BosLover]

Originally Posted by thejohnlec

Hi all,

I have an opportunity to purchase this snare from a private seller. From the other pics, it appears to be all original hardware and is playable. Luan mahogany shell with re-rings and decent but yellowed WMP. It has the Brooklyn badge as well, and is probably mid to late 60s. AFAIK, these were manufactured in Japan by Pearl and distributed by the ZIMmerman GARfield distribution company in Brooklyn. At $120 plus shipping, it feels like its priced at the top of the range for a MIJ and would probably be worth something way way further down the road. One of the appeals for me is that its playable, and my rule is that any instrument I buy doesn't sit on a shelf - I use them all, because I like the thought of being a part of its musical history. Also, it seems like these Zim Gars are getting a bit harder to come by.

If it makes you happy, buy it. Only you can determine what something is worth to you. I started playing in the late '50s and my first drums were cheap poorly made Japanese models with terribly made shells. The drum you're displaying was not a particularly good drum even when it was new. Now, to my eye what was once a mediocre new piece is now a mediocre old piece that looks terrible and is hardly worth the time and effort to restore. Frankly, I wouldn't want it even if it was free. Sorry.

[thejohnlec]

Thanks everyone for the great input. Will probably skip it. As it doesn't seem like it would be a player, I can't justify purchasing a shelf dweller. The Kent and Star wood snares I recently found will fill the need for some new wood snares to gig with - for now!

The thread on MIJ pricing is an interesting read. It's funny to think that those instruments may eventually be priced at what desirables are going for today as inventory continues to disappear - probably waaaaaaaaay down the road though!

Cheers everyone.

[Vater]

Good call. I wouldn't pay anywhere close to $100 for any MIJ snare of that caliber. I paid $60 including shipping for a 6-lug Star brand snare from ebay, only because it had some fairly uncommon hardware I needed for another similar snare I was restoring; otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. No buyer's remorse, but I do feel it was still overpriced.

[BosLover]

Originally Posted by thejohnlec

Thanks everyone for the great input. Will probably skip it. As it doesn't seem like it would be a player, I can't justify purchasing a shelf dweller. The Kent and Star wood snares I recently found will fill the need for some new wood snares to gig with - for now!

The thread on MIJ pricing is an interesting read. It's funny to think that those instruments may eventually be priced at what desirables are going for today as inventory continues to disappear - probably waaaaaaaaay down the road though!

Cheers everyone.

It amazes me that there is a collectible value for cheap, inferior Japanese snare drums of the 1950's and 1960's. Few were even close to the quality of the lower end Tama's, Pearl or Yamaha's of today. Those of us that bought those drums new back in the day did it because we couldn't afford quality stuff or didn't know better. We usually got rid of it as soon as funds became available to buy better stuff. It was a time, only ten or fifteen years after the war when Made in Japan for the most part indicated cheap shoddy copies of quality products. It seems if anything gets old enough there is someone who will want to collect it. That's fine. But when it comes to those old Japanese snares, they were first and foremost intended as musical instruments and were not very good ones.

[Vater]

The toms and bass drums can be made to sound very good, however. So considering how well many MIJ drums (in general, not necessarily the snares, which I agree don't sound very good) age, I'm not sure why it's surprising that they are becoming more and more sought after. It seems the "collectible value" you mention is still very low when compared to collectible values of the US kits they copied...essentially on par with the difference in cost between MIJ and US drums when new. I've only seen a handful of MIJ kits go for $400 or more; most go for much less.

For me, I like the fact that you just don't see these 60s and 70s MIJ kits that much (ever?) at live venues. Having a unique kit is something I value...sure I could custom order from any of the bazillion boutique shops who source shells from Keller and add their own hardware and nifty one-off finishes, but I'd rather buy an old MIJ kit at less than 10% of the cost of those, and hell, I could even re-wrap it to make it more unique than it already is.

[thejohnlec]

Originally Posted by Vater

I paid $60 including shipping for a 6-lug Star brand snare from ebay, only because it had some fairly uncommon hardware I needed for another similar snare I was restoring; otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. No buyer's remorse, but I do feel it was still overpriced.

I paid $50 for the 8 lug Star snare I found a few weeks ago. I need to open the grain up a little and pack the lugs, but it already sounds pretty good and it has some great hardware on it.

By the way, I live up in Wheeling!