Hi,Why are the Japanese copies called stencil drums? Is it because they are literally a copy of the US brands of the day? i.e. using a stencil to copy an existing image or is it something much more intriguing?Thanks
I always thought that they were called stencil kits due to the common Japanese business practice of just stencilling any required name on an existing product, which often was a bold faced copy but not always. It was by no means limited to drum production. The Japanese had very peculiar business practices, after the war----they didn't respect patents , stole a lot of designs outright and for a number of other reasons offered the western world , exactly what they wanted----cheap consumer goods , often to the detriment of the longterm economic stability of local production. Anyone could contact innumerable companies and if they bought enough units have any name put on them. Almost all of the MIJ, MIT and MIK AND MIC names are marketer driven not producer driven. It really became a marketing freeforall. The only two drum companies in the Western world that I can verify that did this were Tromsa ,who badged Roxy for Rudolf Linnek;Lindberg for Lindberg Music; Korri for Korri ; Luxor for Luxor Music; Kings and Concorde for Kings of Holland, Hohner for Hohner and Sonor for Sonor-----and then Premier; who briefly had an arrangement with Boosey and Hawkes after B&H quit production. They both also did some custom heads and sold parts to other companies and if you look at the late 60's product line of Trixon and Ajax( B&H), there had to be some secret stencilling going on there. What about Leedy?
Cymbals are another thing altogether because A. Zildjian did stencils, Ufip and Zanchi did,Sabian did,Boosey & Hawkes did, Zyn did,Paiste did,Meinl did, K. Zildjian may have----basically anybody who was or is anybody in cymbals. and then there are heads and hardware which are all widely stencilled.