Friday afternoons between 3 and 5 PM and also on Monday mornings until lunch break. The panel and placement on the panel was inconsistent at all times in the company's history. And, in some years, there were no badges on toms.

Hi StickyFingers!

I've seen some of these Slingerland drums with the badge location high on the shell. I went through some of my downloaded pictures and came up with two of the them. The first kit, in black sparkle, is from around 1972 and the red sparkle kit from around 1975. What's odd about the red sparkle kit is the tom holder, which was discontinued around 1968!

There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why the shells were drilled for this badge location! But, yes, it did happen!

-Mark

Thanks guys ... really interesting!

Slingerland historian Dr. CJ Wenk states that this badge placement on toms occurred late '71 to early '72, mostly '72. Despite what is commonly believed, badge placement through the years is not random or inconsistent. It is different during different eras and for different drum types. There are several oddities but there are rules.

Nice Mark. Those are good examples of the tom badge placement in question. What makes you believe the red sparkle kit is from '75? Some details I see suggest earlier 70's although still not early enough for that tom mount, that's a real anomaly!

Hi slingerfan!

I won't be home until late tomorrow, but I do have the serial numbers. Based on these numbers, they did appear to be around 1975. What's odd are the torpedo-style bass drum rods and that #171 tom holder. I'll have more info for you tomorrow.

-Mark

Sounds good Mark, perhaps we can get to the bottom of this.

This particular thread reminds me very much listening to guitar collectors nit pick a "vintage" instrument. So many of those guitar collectors have appointed themselves as authorities on what is and isn't "correct" about guitars. Let me first say that, as many of you already know, I worked for Fender for nearly thirty years. So, I was witness to many of these discussions. Secondly, I can say with a great amount of certainty that very few Fender guitars from the late 1940's to the guitars made yesterday have not had some factory-original parts replaced. Some of the changes were made to restore or replace modifications with original components to return the guitars to as close to the originals as possible. Unfortunately, most of the changes were made by people who thought that they could improve on what made those instruments so collectible. Many years ago at a NAMM show I was talking with Leo Fender about some of these "experts" telling me that we used the wrong pick guard screws for our new Reissue 1952 Telecaster. Mr. Fender thought that was amusing. He told me that: "If I ran short of stuff like that, I'd grab the closest production line guy, hand him a screw, and tell him to go to the hardware store down the street to buy ten pounds of the closest thing they have to that screw". I love American-made drums from the mid 20th century--especially a few brands. I have owned many of them and rehabbed a lot of them. I have been known to put a four bolt rail consolette on a bass drum without even caring whether or not a two bolt model would be more period-correct for that particular bass drum. I don't care about the "proper" washers for lug screws. I don't have any problem with using generic tension rods for most of my snare drums and toms. I detest bass drum tension rods without handles for tightening them. I have replaced some of them with "faucet handle" T-rods even if another type originally came on the drum

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Hi leedybdp!

I really enjoyed reading about your background with Fender and your thoughts on vintage drums! Honestly, it's not that we're nitpicking here, but just helping the OP track down a time-frame for his Slingerland drums with badges placed high on the shells. Between slingerfan and myself, I believe we've narrowed down that time frame. As for the other "nitpicks", that's really of interest to both myself and slingerfan and may be best answered through a separate topic or PM.

-Mark