Those were student drums, like Gretsch's answer to the Ludwig Acrolite. As such they were somewhat buried in the back of the catalog. There were both a six and eight lug versions offered. I don't own one but I have heard that they sound good.

Not sure on the OEM snare units although I don't think they were anything particularly out of the ordinary.

The 4105 would have come stock with Gretsch respo snare wires. these are spectacular snare drums, I have a 8 lug version, its one of my favorite snare drums, They are well known for being pro quality sounding drums.

Thank you for the info gentlemen.

Do you know when Gretsch started making these aluminum snares?

The lowest serial numbers I have seen on Gretsch Aluminum snares are in the 89000 range. That would be in about the 1967 +/- time frame. Your drum is likely from the 1967-1968 time period. Note that these estimates are just estimates based upon patterns seen from studying a large number of Gretsch drums. I wrote a serial number based dating guide for Gretsch drums which is available from Rebeats. more information is available at my website.

Thank you for the information. I was guessing later 60's only because of thinking the model could have came about as a possible answer to the acrolite but that was just a guess.

I like that drum!

Yeah, I'm really digging it also!

I just picked up another 4105 but this one is wood with a serial number of 23606. The WMP wrap is cracked and has lifted at the seam which is a bummer because the color is really nice. The throw off needs to be lifted to be able to throw the arm past vertical to be able to engage the snares so it is a little bit of a project but still sounds great.

I might start another thread for help with the throw off but will research it and tinker with it a bit first.

It hasn't been shined up yet but here are a couple of pics.

The 4105 is the wood shelled "Dixieland" model. The Aluminum shelled one was cataloged as the 4106 in the '71 catalog.

Kind of an oddity that your drum would have "4105" on the tag as they are not the same drum. If it were an early production example of these aluminum drums (and the round badge would indicate it was) then maybe they did share a model number for a bit, despite being very different in construction.

Yeah, it seemed odd to me also that an aluminum and a wood shell snare would share the same model number, especially with a fairly large gap between the serial numbers, but they are both labeled 4105. Probably, as you suggested, the aluminum was pretty early in the production before getting its own model number.