PS - where are you buying it?

I was so inspired by this book I ended up pulling the trigger and buying a Kent kit! 20 13 16 with matching snare wrapped in black diamond pearl. This thing is super clean. All original even has the original Kent weathermaster bass drum head and mounted cymbal stand. Inside the shells are written dimensions of the drums probably written by a worker at the factory.

ebay. do a search for kent drums and it should pop up.

I have to defend Kent drums from the “crap” label. Although yes they weren’t the same quality as other American made drums of the era, they were designed for a budget market and in that way they were perfect. The shells are maple and the lugs were a nice sturdy design. Hoops were thinner than the big names and sometimes bearing edges were rough or nonexistent. Overall they have faired pretty well. That being said Ive owned a bunch of sets over the years and have subsequently let all of them go. They aren’t pro quality when compared to the sets I gig with regularly. They are a quaint reminder of the time before the market was flooded with imports. I live about a mile from the original factory. We never valued them much because they were so plentiful. I just picked up a couple more drums the other day. My cousin had them at his school and they just wanted them gone. So now Ive got a decent 9x13 red sparkle and someone has offered to trade me a matching 14x14. I still have a couple of single tension bd’s and another tom. They just keep showing up!! Lol

The Walberg & Auge factory in Worcester, Mass. was mostly a regional brand of drums that were priced somewhere in the middle of where Kent and Ludwig drums were priced. The long history of W&A drums is very interesting in that the company made drum hardware for most of the major drum brands. W&A traded their hardware with the major drum makers for drum shells, drum wrap, and overstock of completed shells. They made a limited number of drum sets that were mostly sold in the nearby New England states. Some of their drums made it outside of that region. I'm one of a relatively small number of drummers outside of New England who fell in love with uniqueness of Walberg & Auge drum sets. You'd be hard pressed to find two sets that are made alike.

The W&A story is one that always amazed me because I lived within an hour of the factory and never knew it existed. I even worked for several years in the Worcester area in the early 70's and never came across it. Missed opportunity is all I can say. I did work within about 200 meters of the Eames factory in Saugus, MA at one juncture and got a couple of visits in there. Great shop in one of the ugliest buildings you can imagine.

Similar to Dan Boucher's story, I was born and raised in Northwest Indiana--near Chicago. The Leedy drum company was an industry trendsetter for many years before I started playing drums in 1951. I was aware of Leedy accessories made in Indianapolis and/or Elkhart, Indiana. But, I was totally unaware of the great drums that were made in either of those factories. Slingerland was my preferred brand of drums for many years. Believe it or not, I was not aware of Leedy drums made by Slingerland because none of the stores where i shopped carried that brand. Boy, was I surprised to "discover" the beautiful Slinger/Leedy drums about ten years ago.

Ordered mine a few days ago. Looking forward to it.

Mike

I had an old orange Kent snare that I wish I would've kept. The sound was very average at best but I loved their tin foil badges!

I am not a fan of foil or vinyl sticker badges on any drums. Two of my favorite brands committed those sins in the latter years of their existence. Walberg and Auge drums had round metal badges on their drums that were made in their Worcester, Massachusetts factory. They cheaped out with crummy foil badges when they moved to their new factory in nearby Auburn. Rogers drums had a few variations of that wonderful Rogers script logo that was nailed to the shell, and did not surround the vent hole. Some marketing "genius" had a horrible idea to abandon that great logo to apply crappy vinyl stickers with the "Big R" logo on their drum shells.