Well....here's what I've found under the black paint so far......original gold paint on the shell with a perfectly placed VFW decal on the shell. And royal blue paint under the black on the hoops. Therefore I believe that this drum was originally a VFW snare drum, ordered this way from Ludwig as shown in the vintage 1930's catalogs on the vitage drum guide main catalog pages.So.....instead of refinishing it to natural mahogany, I'm going to restore this drum to its original VFW paint scheme. Gold, with royal blue hoops, calf heads, and gut or wire silk wound snares. I'll post some in progress pics soon....
Ludwig-dude - I like this plan to restore it too!!! Your drum will again be a tribute to our Veterans!Cool1
As I've perused the catalogs and noticed that they refer to these type of drums three different ways 1) Marching drums 2) Street drums 3) Parade drums, I seem to prefer “Street Drum” it sounds to me more like a player’s term. Not so frilly, kind of like slang. I like street drums!