The relation with the tone control or rivits, with the mount can help date it !!

Sorry about , no pictures but I'm getting close. I actually bought a new camera and also have had driver problems getting pictures loaded with it. I guess it is the computer that is the issue. soon...

Regarding the tone control.... Both Magnus' and my drums have the little bug shaped mount for the tone control, so there are no rivets. I'm not sure when Sonor discontinued that part and switched to the riveted mount. My drums have the tone control knob integral with the shaft ,threading in and out of a nut. I see that in the 1957/58 catalogue, the tone control knob carried the thread, turning on a threaded shaft( similar to early Trixon,Premier).-----looks like Magnus' drums have the same type of tone control as mine.

The problem is-----I can't find any catalogue info. between The New Beat( '59?) and 1962. My drums would appear to have been made sometime in that gap, based primarily on them having the newer boat shaped tom mounts but the metric, issue?. Perhaps they continued to make metric drums for metric countries, shipping the inch sizes to Britain and across the pond? My drums came from Europe.

1959 to 62 were transition years with alot of changes and waiting for parts made in factory to be made.

Some facts, Not one bass drum had a centered tom mount until 1959. There were two types of shark tooth, one small for rack toms and snares, the other large for BD and FT. the larger one does not come to a sharp point like the first teardrop with the recessed throat.

I`m guessing here but maybe someone like an edorser or customer had a kit bought before 59 and wanted to add to it, then I can see Sonor makeing a matching tom from the past.

Sonor still has unsold metric shell blanks in the museum section, and god knows what in that basement no-one is allowed into !!

That is all pretty interesting stuff. ----especially the shell blank bomb.

My bass drum is an 8 lugger, two mufflers on the batter side, round, about 4" with leaf springs pulled by a rod shaped nut. The tom mount is offset and of the boat pattern. There are two spurs fore and two spurs aft, matey and by the holey jeez, if somun dint tri tu yuz her as a catfish tank becawz der is a wee bit uh water stains in er.

Nothing in that museum building is for sale or ever gonna leave it. If you go to Scott`s sonormuseum site,...at the bottom of the home page is a pic., click on the photo to take the documented tour he took and put up. You`ll see lots of things in the background, includeing racks and racks of bins. He was not allowed into the basement of that building but has a exterior photo showing how overstuffed it is with old Sonor !!

OK,...The tour photo don`t work no more,...I`m waiting for the rev to reply cuz I just asked him why it`s not working !!

If so, then the Kenny Clarke kit (http://www.drummuseum.hu/foto.php?i=gyujtemeny/kepek/66_1.jpg&l=a&t=Sonor+Star+1957) is incorrectly dated. And, like the KC kit, my kit has a centered tom mount.

One thing that I have never seen on later teardrops, though, is the cupped (or rounded) profile of the nut on top of the bass drum spur feet. My kit has them, and it seems like the KC kit does too. On all other teardrops I have seen, these nuts are flat.

/Magnus

This is the advvertised 57 Star, Note the four spurs, all the large BD`s had four, some smaller kits had two but not the Star. In 59, Sonor went with the center mount, prolly so people could add another tom tom and Floor tom, cuz the Rock trend was beginning !! They also took interest in a Western Market !!

Also note Clark in the bottom corner, They could have given him anything he wanted !!