There are pre-aged yellowed wraps for sale. They look hideous as they use the smaller chip pattern. Personally, I seek out pristine specimens or make them as close to factory issued as possible. I believe the drive behind vintage drum hunting is to find as close to perfect as you can. Guitar hunters suffer from the same brain flaws that guitar players do ... they believe the 'ax' adds a toughening and macho factor to the individual. Hence, the BATTLE scars. It gives the appearence of thousands of hours of dedication to the craft. Drummers are a different breed. Generally speaking, we don't want out instrument to be nicked up and banged around. We like the polished shell and hardware. We let our chops and our sensitive ears speak volumes.

Yeah, I saw the pre-yellowed wraps and don't like them.

I kinda suspected that many drummers don't prefer a dinged-up and beaten instrument. I did see a thread on cymbalholics that suggested otherwise.

If I were to artificially age an instrument for myself, I want it to look loved but not beaten to a pulp, for sure!!!!

If I were to buy an "aged" guitar off of the floor, I would go for the "closet queen" look, rather than the "dragged behind a truck" look. Infact, the only aged guitars I like would be what Tom Murphy does to subtly age a guitar. Maybe I could see if Mr. Murphy wouldn't take a swing at a subtly aged drum kit.

I own a couple of natural wood finish kits. Those have aged well. The oak has honeyed and spider cracked. If that's what you are getting at, then yes ... that would be interesting. It is very clean, but has that seasoned wood look. That might be interesting in a new kit for someone (other than me).

Yeah- "natural"-looking aging is what I am after. Not this dragged behind a truck, lit on fire, then peed on for good measure.

It's just like cymbals- everyone likes a cymbal with a graceful patina. Not grubby, mind.

I'll admit that I am a sucker for a 1960's or '70s Telecaster that looks gracefully worn-in. Gradually worn-to-the-wood looks, not having a ball of keys thrown at it, a can of air cracking the paint in weird patterns and shoe polish in every nook and cranny.

Yeah- if I were to try to sell these, my market is the player who wants vintage vibe without endangering a vintage kit on the road. I don't know that I would even attempt to go into business doing this. It would be a different tack on the boutique market, for certain.

I found it much more difficult to subtly age a guitar convincingly than to make it look like the player wore dirty motor oil-soaked gloves, a spiked Texas rodeo-sized belt buckle and 30 grit sandpaper clothes. I have a funny feeling that gracefully aged (and well-cared for) drums would be a tough thing to duplicate.

I like new shiney looks of drums, even (maybe especially) vintage ones. Scuffs on hardware and BD hoops are a necessity, I guess, but I don't think they're any pretty.

I like dirty, played coated heads and dirty aged cymbals. But I like my chrome and my wraps shiny.

Interesting assessment.

If I were to do this, I wouldn't make it look like just a junky old kit that lived it's life in the back of a trailer with no protection!!!

Pre-aged heads... Interesting...

In defense of this, many guitar collectors are so afraid that a guitar was refinished that they would rather buy a beaten up but original finish guitar when it comes to a vintage guitar. Even an expertly refinished guitar is worth less than a guitar that has the very last bits of it's finish hanging on by a thread. Because of the fact that guitar finishes were not very good in the old days, it was very, very common to refinish guitars. Case in point: Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar (even if it weren't owned by SRV) would be worth a fair bit of money over a similar guitar that was refinished. But then the Rory Gallagher and SRV guitars became very cool because they never replaced their axes.

Then there's the noobies who do exactly what you suggest. I see a lot of those guys...

I don't like anything that's pretentious. And there's nothing more pretentious than "aging" instruments, in my opinion.

Fair enough. I am now ticking off three potential customers from the list, LOL.

Ok, I am CryBaby

Just Kidding!!!!