Yes, I can help.

Until the end of the 60s the catalogues inform about shells made of 'Sperrholz'

which can be translated as 'plywood' (no special type of wood named).

Later catalogues on that website are only telling that 'wood' is used, not indicating which type of wood.

I personally know that this factory TROMSA in it's producing aera was known for cheap drums only, nothing special.

Greetings from Germany!

Ralf

Thank you very much for clearing this up. Many people have told me that they were made of poplar, and others said that they used beech, etc. I figured they were just a plywood of sorts, but wanted to make sure. Thanks again!

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Well...wait...most all drumshells are plywood. DOH

That doesn't mean they are cheap or poorly made.

The shells could easily have plys of beech or poplar (poplar was usually a middle ply, as it finishes very, very poorly).

Beechwood was pretty typical on drums from central Europe, no ?[/COLOR]

well. i'm a little late on this post but then that's me. Tromsa was a very cool company because when the onslaught from Japcrap arrived ,they found ways to make cheaper good drums not ways of cheapening good drums. the shells were 3 ply poplar which was rolled green and dried rather than steambent from dry plywood.they then attached European beech rerings and they had a very good shell. the bass drums needed the extra strength of beech in order to take the stresses of the tom and cymbal arms so they were made of beech,sometimes reinforced on the top and reringed with beech. I have 29 drums made in this factory and have only had to effect shell repairs in 2 cases---both due to overtightening of heavy drum heads. they are very good sounding drums when headed and tuned properly and have the added bonus of being light as well.

We here in the U.S. need to see these drums!They are pretty much unheard of here(well,not HERE here)I mean over here.Maybe Tromsa was doing a Kent-inexpensive but not poorly made.Are they metric dimensions?

I've just had a look at Tromsa's catalogues at a German website. The shells of the early 60s drumsets appear to be inch (sizes are indicated like 16" etc.). The earlier catalogues do not state sizes. So the shells can be either inch or metric.

Ralf

Tromsa showed up in the U.S.,Canada and Australia (elsewhere as well, I presume) under the name Roxy. I have 29 of these drums and about 2/3 of them came badged Roxy(there are 4 different badges but they are all similar) and the rest were unbadged. Likely the others were private imports, or Tromsa briefly exported to N.A. and then quit because info. from members of the family that made them is that they did not export out of the D.D.R.The Roxy name was a marketing name originating with a pretty much one man show out of Hamburg. Old badges say Roxy Hamburg, newer ones say Roxy Hamburg -Wandsbeck. It looks like the firm is expanding but in reality Mr. Roxy lived in Wandsbeck, a suburb of Hamburg or had a warehouse or something there. One of my kits is 14x5,10x8,13x9,14x14,and 21 3/16 x13(all of the other 5 bass drums I have are 20x13 and seem to be a little more recent). This kit was probably made sometime before the mid 50's and may have been produced about the time Tromsa was developing their R.K.B. line of plastic drumheads(they ,for years produced calf drumheads and uniform shell sizes were irrelevant),so drums from about 1955 on were all standard inch sizes. The odd sized shell probably stems from the fact that the factory had stock of that size made up and thats what went into the kit. Sometime later ,the next bass drum production run would likely have made a standard 22" shell to conform to the introduction of the new plastic heads.

quote

... because info. from members of the family that made them is that they did not export out of the D.D.R. ...

unquote

... out of West(ern) Germany. D.D.R. (or: GDR) was on the other side of the iron curtain and Tromsa was located here in the so called West Germany.

;)

A slight - but huge - difference before the reunion of both German countries in 1990.

Ralf

Hello, You seem to have alot of these drums.Could you post some photos of them.Thanks Mikey