Dave

Much of Leedy in the 60's were Made by Slingerland drums from 1955 to 1965 that they drop the Leedy Line. It was a made of good quality and had a good sound to them.

Thank you!

From 1955 through 1965 Leedy drums were virtually identical to Slingerland drums with the exception of the beautiful Leedy drum lugs and the badges on the drums. There were some variations to the hardware on the snare drums of the artist models that were essentially the use of some phased out snare strainer mechanisms that were previously used on Slingerland snare drums. I recently sold off twelve of my thirteen vintage drum sets so that I now have my all-time keeper set. The drum set is a 1963 Leedy Shelly Manne set in Black Diamond Pearl with sizes of 9x13, 16x16, 14x20, and a 5x14 Shelly Manne model matching snare drum. I also have the vintage appropriate Leedy bass drum pedal and hi-hat stand.

leedybdp pretty much nailed it. Leedy drums from this period use all of the same Slingerland parts as Slingerland drums other than the lugs, badges and some of the strainers which were Leedy designs. The double ended Leedy snare lugs were created by Slingerland so if you see a Leedy snare with double ended beavertail lugs, it is Slingerland era. They also made Leedy branded footboards but that is pretty much it. Slingerland bought the Leedy name and IP so they could have a second line of drums to try to out compete WFL who had bought back the Ludwig name in the same deal who was their biggest competitor, and to a lesser extent Rogers and Gretsch. They spent the bare minimum on new tooling and marketing. It didn't work out for them as they hoped.

The last Leedy catalog was 1965. Slingerland continued to supply Leedy badged kits with the iconic "deco" lugs thru the end of the 60's.

leedybdp! That's just a beautiful Slinger-Leedy outfit! I love the Leedy lugs, but also really liked those foot boards on the bd pedal and hi hat. Those two items can be very difficult to find!

Here's my Slinger-Leedy Frank Capp snare drum, wrapped in original Green Satin Flame. I think Gretsch's name was more accurate... Aqua Satin Flame!

-Mark

That's a great looking snare drum. here's another Shelly Manne snare drum that I recently sold. The badge says that the drum is from the late 1950s.

I would love to obtain a 1963 Leedy catalog. I would also be pleased to get a 1962 or a 1964 Leedy catalog if there is no 1963 catalog available. Please respond if you can help me out.

The '62 Leedy catalog can be viewed in it's entirety here:

http://www.drumarchive.com/leedy/

According to Rob Cook there were no Leedy catalogs in '63 or '64.