I believe that is part of the Japanese stencil kits.

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David

Thanks Webmaster,can you elaborate on the term "stencil kit"please.

During the 1960's and part of the 70's there were lots of different drums coming from Japan. There were probably at least 30 different drum names coming from japan but these drums were being made by Pearl and Tama and probably some other companies were making drums also. So a stencil drum is a drum that was made by pearl or tama or another one of those companies but doesn't necessarily have the Pearl or Tama name on it.

In 1964 I acquired a set of St. George drums. The music store where I got them also sold Pearl drums. I noted that everything on the St. George drums looked the same as on the Pearl drums. A store employee told me that St. George was manufactured by Pearl. Not long ago I saw a photo of the 3 Stooges pretending that they were playing musical instruments - Curly was sitting behind a St. George kit.

My first kit was a used St George (20", 12", 14", wood snare) in purple marine pearl that I bought in the early 1970s. I actually turned down buying a used Premier kit because the kick was only 18" and I didn't like the gold sparkle wrap as much! I was 14 years old at the time and obviously not very drum savvy!

The St George "Hollywood" model drums were typical Japanese stencil with Luan shells and Luan rerings. The snare had an adjustable butt. I played them for a few years in my early bands and then bought a new Pearl kit with a metal shell snare (wow, was I stoked!). I didn't realize at the time that the Pearl kit was also made of Luan and only a moderate step up from the St George. I wound up combining the two kits into one monster kit for a while. I think I even covered them both with wood grain contact paper since I really didn't like the tiger eye wrap on the Pearl. I finally sold the St George.

The St George brand was one of the less popular Japanese stencil brands so you don't see them very often. I actually saw a used St George snare in the same purple wrap a few years ago on eBay for $35. Afterward, I wish I would have bought it just for nastalgia. I also saw a St George snare at a swap meet a couple of years ago in orange flake but the guy wanted $125! Plus it had been sitting in the hot sun all day!

Barry

My dad purchased my first practice set for me in 1965. They were blue metal flake St. George, and cost a princely $250 new. They were junk. The cymbals sounded like trash can lids, and the shells had been so hastily molded that the wood grain had split in places. The only solid part was the hardware. The tuning lugs were all self aligning double tension. That was pretty advanced for the day. But when playing them, the drums sounded like cardboard boxes.

Pearl et al got into the cheap musical instrument market (St. George made junk guitars and amps as well) because the BEATLES and other British invasion bands had motivated a lot of young kids to "start a band". So there was a HUGE market for inexpensive, entry level instruments. You couldn't find a used drum set, electric guitar or guitar amp to save your life back in the mid-60's. At least that was true in the SoCal area. But a new St George instrument could be had for a fraction of the price of a used Ludwig, Fender, etc. instrument, had any been available.

So let me get this straight....you had a Tiger Eye pearl Pearl kit that you recovered with wood grain contact paper?

and your thoughts on that now??

John

Hi John,

Yes, for a while I did cover them both with wood grained contact paper and made one big "monster kit"! I think I was fifteen or sixteen at the time. Of course, the contact paper did not hold up very well so I eventually removed the tiger eye wrap (which I really didn't like) from the Pearl and recovered them in real oak veneer. After applying the oak veneer I painted the screws and washers on the interior black, redid the bearing edges and lacquered them inside and out (lots of coats). They looked pretty great and sounded much better than before. I always had trouble getting the 8" x 12" to sound good, though.

I used them for many years and then substituted Roto toms for the toms. At that point I was only using the Pearl kick drum. I replaced that kick with a vintage 22" TAMA Imperialstar kick (which sounded great!) and then went to a 24" version of the same (which didn't sound as good). I then tried a Sonor Phonic Plus 18" x 24" which kicked the holy crap out of any kick I'd ever tried. I then proceeded to accumulate a large quantity of Phonic and Phonic Plus drums. I now have a monster Sonor Phonic Plus/Phonic kit as well as several other Sonor Phonic and Performer kits (plus a few others) and lots of various snares.

After I recovered the Pearl with oak I took the bottom head off of the St. George snare, painted it silver and used it as a timbale. I eventually sold the St. George kit. I sold the Pearl kit about eight years ago to a guy that loves them!

With 20/20 hindsight that original Pearl tiger eye kit might be of interest to a vintage stencil collector today. I might even be able to sell them for a few hundred dollars! :-) My journey reworking them and learning a lot about drums in the process is what led me to to what I have and where I am today. I doubt highly that journey would have been the same if I had left them in the original wrap while all the while looking at them at every gig saying to myself "I really don't like that tiger eye wrap!"

I'd like to see that photo. Curly was a Stooge 1933-1946, passing away in 1952. You may be thinking of Curly Joe who did films with Moe and Larry into the 1960s.

p.s. I'm a member of the 3 Stooges Fan Club. Local 6 7/8.