Really beautiful badge!

Can you also make a pic of the snare lever part, please?

Ralf

I believe I have some of those lugs-big threads...

Is this the company that will be making the new Yamahas?

OOps my bad...The company that will no longer be making Yamahas.

This is from the Sakae Website

The Sakae Story

A Letter from the Desk of Eizo Nakata

Many people on the inside of the drum industry are aware of my family business, but for most drummers the name Sakae is completely new. Because of this I would like to explain a little further the history of my family business, Sakae Rhythm/Sakae Drums.

Sakae was founded in 1925 by my grandfather in Osaka, Japan. Up until the late 60’s we made several percussion instruments for the Japanese school market. We spent many years developing our unique way of making drums and creating our own musical voice in the world of percussion. Because of this success, we eventually drew the attention of Yamaha who approached my father to consider a partnership in making drums for them. So, from 1967 until now Sakae has been the primary OEM source of all Yamaha high-end drums. This is something my family is very proud of and for over 40 years we have remained exclusive to Yamaha.

One thing is for certain and that is change. Recently I became the third generation to be handed the reins of this proud family business. My whole life I have been groomed to understand and respect the importance of our drum traditions, artists, history and honor. I grew up with legends like Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes, Steve Gadd, Peter Erskine, Ndugu Chancler, Charley Drayton etc. all contributing to my nurturing and training. It is upon me that my family has now laid the responsibility to carry on this excellence and tradition to making the instrument we call the drums. Equipped with this task I now find it necessary to have the Sakae brand stand on its own and come out from behind the shadow of Yamaha.

In these difficult and uncertain economic times I realize the decision to independently build the Sakae brand is one most would see as risky. However; Sakae is not just another drum company. My family and I are committed to the traditions of making instruments of the utmost quality and excellence. Corporatism and the desire to become the biggest drum company in the world are NOT our priorities. What IS our priority is making musical instruments that my father, grandfather and the legendary artists I have grown up with, would all be proud of. Bringing honor to their names, hard work and music is the driving force behind each and every morning I wake. With this passion underneath all that I do, the decision to go alone was obvious and the only conclusion. There was no other way to pursue the ground breaking advancements we wanted. I believe you will agree when you hear our new instruments.

I understand that for most in the drumming world the name Sakae may be unfamiliar, but the sound of Sakae is not. We believe we have taken that great and well-respected sound to a new level and would love to have you give them a listen. The world doesn’t need another drum company, but the world DOES need to hold onto the Sakae sound that has been so instrumental in the music we have heard for the past 40 plus years. Please give Sakae a listen, check out our site and ask your favorite drum shop if they carry the brand. We would love to make the name Sakae as popular to the world as the Sakae sound you have come to know and love.

I hope to meet you all some day and hope that Sakae will be your choice for a musical voice in the near future.

Sincerely,
 Eizo Nakata
 President Sakae Drums

So sorry for answering my own question:rolleyes:

So I guess this begs the question - if Sakae will now come from behind the shadow of Yamaha (and become their own public brand) then who will make the Yamahas now? Will Sakae pull double duty and build a healthy competition between (the two brands) that are actually made by the same company? I know that sounds like a strange potential reality, but really this is going on all over the place: the facade of a competition between brands, while meanwhile the same company profits from all the sales in one way or another.

Next, I guess I will reveal my ignorance and ask was it Sakae that made all of the Yamaha drum lines or just some certain models - and now immediately wondering who exactly made the R-360s and R-380s?

This is certainly interesting to learn about.

John

Many thanks everyone..Do you have any idea on the year or the name of the wrap?

Ralf...thanks love the badge too mate... heres some more pictures .are they ok for you buddy??

update...just arrived...the wrap is awesome...really pleased...looks like a coral with a silver swirl..

If you look at the drum pictured, it bears much resemblance to any number of early MIJ drums but not that much to most Yamahas. It was undoubtedly, made prior to the Yamaha connection(pre 1972?).Those overlapping elements are there, because until the individual companies gained market share and could afford to grow in a direction,more and more on their own, the industry players in Japan were actually assemblers. That's why ,one era of Stewart looks Hoshino Gakki and another looks Pearl. Tama and Pearl footpedals from the 60's are clearly cast in the same foundry, as were the stands, and lugs from numerous patterns. There were , companies doing the foundry work from which the assemblers would contract custom runs or buy off the shelf. There were probably even a company or companies making shells. There are shells out there from both Hoshino and Pearl that look identical. None of those companies engineered or designed anything in the early years----they just fudged something together from the available resources for whichever American jobber was paying the bills ,at the time.

Yamaha, who had a tradition of quality and a track record of fine piano manufacturing, obviously demanded of Sakae, that they come to the table with the ability to make something worthy of Yamaha , thus forcing divergence from the melee of mediocre junk that was the staple of Japanese 60's drums. Other players that get forgotten are Fuji and Suzuki and a couple of others,whose names I can't recall right now. Why are those ones so, rare? They actually made products from unique designs and laboured some, over the shell quality and construction, therefore yielding something that was more expensive. End of story. The last thing you could sell in the 60's was an expensive Japanese anything. That is why there are so few excellent Japanese drums around from the 60's. Sakae, cleverly ,piggybacked onto Yamaha, one of the few Japanese namebrands , that could lay claim to quality and therefore demand a higher price.

In the 60's-70's there were three main manufacturers of MIJ stencil drums Pearl, Star, & Hoshino. Hoshino is the least documented of the three, but we do know that their official name was Hoshino Kougyou and in no way related to Hoshino Gakki, who was the parent company of Star/Tama. There were two smaller companies who also made the stencil drums, Sakae & Yamamoto Drums (Gracy). Sakae had better hardware and diecast hoops, but all five had lesser quality shells in the beginning. The Zim-Gar brand for a while used Sakae (as well as Star). If anyone is guilty of using someone else's lugs, it would be Hoshino, whose Slingerland style tom lugs are identical to Star. Pearl's lugs are slightly different.