I wont know the age for sure until it arrives...I'm thinking it should be tomorrow, so I was planning on pulling the heads and checking for any possible date stamps inside the shell. (Not sure if they did that in that era but I'm gonna look anyway...lol)

I have my eye on a strainer thats advertised as a Gretsch strainer on ebay in case mikey doesn't have one. It looks very similar (as I'm sure most of them did back then) and may be a suitable substitute if I can't find a L&L one. At least it would be closer than the Pioneer one fitted to it now.

BTW....after a bit of research through old catalogs....I've determined that the Pioneer throw-off currently fitted is from the 1948-1982 time frame. The earlier ones (1917-1947) had an angled (or bent if you will) gate(?) to it. This will most likely be up for grabs when this project is complete as I will have no use for it, but I'm sure someone on here may get some use out of it.....condition of it seems good in the pics, but I'll check it out more when I have the drum in hand.

Yeah,I just found that out myself, You know the strainer will bring good money!! man that is a fine fine drum sir!!!

L-D there is a Eye doctor here where myself and Kevins live here in Hickory NC, he used to own an antique store closed it, a few years back, I was asked by them to appraise there drum collection, he had 20 or so rope drums 5 or 6 old ludwig bass drums, a couple of rope bass drums converted to tables, Don't even get me started on that! and a slingerland kit, of course I told them unless they can be documented in some way as to Historical events etc, there worth was not that much, but all of the drums where clean, clean, clean, his wife was who I dealt with, she told me the rope drums where a total worth of around $10,000.00 that is what they paid for them, then her reply was they aren't for sale anyway, so I replied Insure them for the purchase price!! But I would love to own some of them!!!

Very cool.......I hear ya about the drums converted into tables thing. I see them on ebay once in a while and it just kills me. This drum I'm doing though is actually a rod tension drum that someone but a rope tension system on....probably just for looks....and that will be disappearing during the restoration. I may keep the rope tension system around though if I decide to build my own rope tension model......would be fairly easy to build one using a Keller shell or maybe even a Vaughncraft shell......Cool1

Absolutely you could easily do that, and either one of those shells would be excellent, In fact vaughncraft has a cocobola 12x15 or a 12x16 shell on sale now!

Hmmm one project at a time though...LoLoLoLo

Fair enough!!! so many drums so little time!!!

Got the drum today. Its in pretty good shape. I removed the decoratinve rope "tension" system from the drum and pretty much tossed it in a drawer. Maybe I'll use it as a pattern for a real rope drum project. Anyway, the shell is mahogany (should be three ply mahogany/poplar/mahogany) with maple hoops and maple reinforcement rings. It does appear that the snare butt was fitted much later because it is not centered on the snare beds! Also the muffler is definitely a later addition as that was not drilled level either! The pioneer throw-off is probably from the 60's as its chrome plated, and te heads were 60's era Remo weathermaster heads. (very old king crown logos)All the rest of the hardware is nickel plated. There appears to be remnants of a metallic gold paint under the hideous black paint. I'm going to try stripping it back one layer at a time. I'm thinking natural mahogany finish with a clear lacquer or shellac over the shell with natural maple finish hoops.

Well....I couldn't find 3m's safestrip anywhere, but I picked up something called citristrip......seems similar in principle to the 3M stuff. One application and most of the black is off of the shell......underneath the black....a metallic gold and a VFW decal. So.....a VFW used it for a while before someone painted it black. It will probably take me a few applications of the stripper before I'm back to the bare wood shell, but it is better to do it in stages I think....

Cool Beans, L-D,, looking forward to the restro!!!Clapping Happy2Cool1