Hi Robert,

I honestly don't think I've ever seen a shell date stamp past 1966. Also, I believe that Slingerland normally only included the month and year. Maybe others have a more definitive answer!

-Mark

+1 with Mark on the absence of date stamps past '66. It is not 100% clear when Slingerland stopped using the date stamps because they could have been covered over beginning in late '66 when they started applying the beige stain to the interiors. It is known that there were no date stamps in the Niles era from 70 onward. BTW, Slingerland used date stamps of month/year and also month/day/year.

Here's a Slingerland kit on eBay, from one of our members, that shows a month/day/year stamp! https://www.ebay.com/itm/1960s-Slingerland-Champagne-Sparkle-Pearl-14x20-8x12-16x16-Drum-Kit/283360145407?hash=item41f994afff:g:uo0AAOSwe9VcUwfn

The last picture clearly shows all date info! I very seldom see this. Probably depends on the worker at the time, and if they decided to include the day on the stamping wheel!

-Mark

No date stamps in the 70's. The badge in your photo was used '70-'72. The serial 38xxx would typically be associated with '71 but one should take into consideration all of the drums attributes when dating. Looks to have the "beige stain" interior also.

You got it Mark. Per Dr CJ Wenk the stamp wheel had numbers for the day, XX's for the day, dashes (--) for the day or blank spaces where the day would be. Also the year could be shown complete (1963) or abreviated (63). Examples of all these variations can be found on the VDF.

Tremendous help people, much appreciated.

A plethora of information

I was pretty sure the 70's did not have date stamps.

Thank you again,

Another interesting wrinkle Mark. It may just be the picture but doesn't that date stamp look huge?