Must have been all picked over a few years ago!

Hi Wayne!

I haven't seen many US Kent sets! Member 1966bmx loves these drums and has quite a few complete sets at his house in southern California. He hosted a drum "yard sale" some years ago and seeing, and playing, these sets was a real treat!

I just saw a few sets on eBay right now, but all in the States. Check them out if you haven't already done so.

-Mark

Wayne: Make sure its a KENT USA set and not one of the MIJ imports, which Kent started to do around 1968. They got sets from Japan and slapped the Kent badges on them.

Did they use Kent USA stickers?...if so thats kind of against the law isin't it?...Besides, how could you tell if it was MIJ?...thanks for the heads up

The inside reveals all. The us made kents are two ply (actually one ply wrapped around twice) whereas the mij have vertical grain and have a thicker shell. Most of the time (maybe all of the time?) the hardware is different also. Check out the kent drums page on facebook for pictures. Mouse is coming out with a book on the history of kent. I believe it will be out next month.

The book by mouse will be a good one, if anyone knows Kent drums its him. I have a nice kit but not willing to sell at this time.

Hello Wayne to my knowledge so far

When Kent started running out of the two ply maple shells

they did import the Asian mahogany shells from Star but otherwise continued to use authentic Kent hardware and badges on them. (the 14" floor tom pic. 2 is a asian mahogany shell the rest of the kit is authentic maple.)

Once the time came where Kent was importing kits that were 100% mij Star built,

the traditional Kent hardware and badges were no longer used.

The new badge was just a thin oval shaped gold colored blank sticker

with only the name KENT ink stamped on to it (pic.1)

It is hard to find examples of these where the word KENT is not faded or partially worn off.

I know that someone made reproductions of the Kenmore badges so it is possible that some 100% mij kits

have been re-badged with the reproduced Kenmore badges especially given the poor quality of those new oval stickers

but I do not think any 100% Star built kits went out the door originally with Kenmore's on them.

There is a really clean Black Diamond Pearl Kent set on Facebook Marketplace for $475.00 20/13/16/14 the guy selling it Pelletier Drums is a good guy. Ive bought and sold to him in the past.

Reading throught this, I couldn't resist asking which had the micronite filter? It wasn't until recently that I realized micronite was asbestos. Good going on Kent's part! But they were out there when the drums were too. I probably smoked one or two somewhere along my teenage years. Kents were one of the first sets I ever saw in association with a live rock and roll band in northeastern Massachusetts, not far from where they were being built. Nice stuff. Good luck on the search.