Love those snare drums!

-Mark

Mark: Here goes! It came with some modern stick choppers on it. I found a Slingerland stick saver from 70s for batter; reso is just a random flanged hoop.

Hi Jay!

That's a great looking Slinger-Leedy! I'm sure it sounds excellent with your chosen hoops, too!

-Mark

Jay_M, how did you arrive at a '65 date for your drum? I ask because the badge on your drum is usually associated with an earlier date.

That's not a Shelly Mann. It's a Reliance that has had the single flange hoops changed out at some point.

It's still a great drum.

The Reliance and Utility used the Slingerland Three Point strainer. The Shelly Mann used the Broadway strainer with the built in snare bridges. This was also a three point strainer but it was based on the old Conn era Ludwig and Ludwig three point and has wider hole spacing top to bottom. The two top holes are spaced the same.

So unless your snare has an extra hole below the lower hole on the strainer, it's a Reliance.

The only Shelly Mann snares that came with the Slingerland three point strainer were the 4 1/2" deep models.

Based on the badge it's more like a '57 or '58, perhaps '59. Around '60 they added 48 after Chicago.

I have a '58 Reliance that was originally a Duco finish. It was found in the trash by a friend and given to me many years ago. It was missing the strainer and butt, along with the bottom original hoop and clips. It has been covered with black Naugahyde at some point and was a complete mess. Some stripper, stain and poly along with a Ludwig p85 and butt and I had it back up and going. It is one of my best sounding snares.

I concur with thin shell on the model identification. Adding to his comments, that particular badge is said to have been used from '58-'61 by Slingerland historian Dr. Wenk. Badge placement to the right of the strainer is said to have occurred from summer of '60 to spring of '61 per Dr. Wenk. Jay's drum would be expected to have a mahogany interior ply. No muffler would also be expected (if a muffler is present it would be expected 180 degrees across from the badge).

Agree completely with thinshell and slingerfan. I did notice all this, but only wanted to comment that it was a nice drum.

-Mark

I'm with Mark (and thin shell), it is a nice drum. Who doesn't like the Leedy lugs and red sparkle wrap? Hopefully Jay_M is okay with drum minutiae talk.

All good! I had never heard of a Reliance so...learn something new every day. I was told by the person who gave it to me that he put stick choppers on it himself - maybe the prior hoops were stick choppers too? He didn't mention, so I figured they were stick savers and it was a Shelley Manne. The date in shell is 11.28.1960 so yes, I stand corrected. I also know before Leedy folded Slingerland took them over and that was more mid '60s. Either way it sounds great and I've used it on a lot of records and sessions.

Oh and yes, it has a tone control.

Leedy and Ludwig and Ludwig were owned by Conn up until '55. Conn had actually combined the two separate lines into Leedy and Ludwig in a last ditch effort to stay in the drum business. They sold their drum business to WFL and Slingerland.

WFL got the Ludwig name back and the Imperial lug along with some other Ludwig and Ludwig intellectual property. Slingerland got the Leedy name, lug design and other Leedy intellectual property.

At this point, all Leedy drums were made by Slingerland and used the same shells and most of the same hardware except lugs and strainers.

Slingerland designed the double ended lug that was used on their Leedy snares as Leedy had never had a double ended lug before. This was one of the few investments that Slingerland made in the Leedy brand. Everything else was standard Slingerland parts.

So long story short, Slingerland took over Leedy in '55.