Greetings,
Blue Sparkle "Olympian" MIJ Kit (not to be confused with Premier "Olympic", which were made in England). Nice players kit. I'll let the photos do most of the talking, but here are some things to know about them:
Rack Tom: 6 lug, natural interior with no re-rings. It has some...well I guess it's fading, but it is actually darkened to a midnight blue (See photo "Olympian 13" ) in the thread below. It's on about 40-50% of the tom, the rest of it is fine. This tom originally had a 5/8" mount that mounted like a bass drum spur with a nut on the inside. I filled in that hole with wood filler and colored it blue with a Sharpie, so it's not very noticeable (and faces towards the floor tom if the badge face the front/audience). Because of this mount, the tom has a bit of a flat spot in that area. The heads fit and tune up just fine, though. (See Olympian 11 & 12 below to view the flat spot from each bearing edge). To mount the tom, I will include a 3/4" Pearl style tom arm and the bracket that accepts it (it originally was one of those odd 3/4" vertical to 5/8" horizontal tom arms that was lost long before I obtained them-See "Olympian 6"). All you need is a suspension mount and you're good to go, or if you prefer you can also mount the tom on a snare stand like the photo shows (Please note, neither snare stand shown is included). Nearly new EC 2 batter head and bottom head is good. Of course if you choose to use a suspension mount, you can place the cover plate of the suspension mount to completely hide the old hole that was filled in.
Snare Drum: 6 lug, natural interior with no re-rings. No fading. Great shape. The strainer was replaced by the previous owner. I covered up the old strainer's holes with with screws and nuts (See "Olympian 10"-larger screws/nuts are supporting the existing strainer). Original tone control. Good heads.
Floor Tom: 6 lug, natural interior with no re-rings. No fading. Great shape. Good heads.
Bass Drum: 6 lugs, natural interior with re-rings. There is some fading/darkening/slight buckling of the wrap on top (buckling is at the lugs-See "Olympian 9"). Shell is good and round, but there are some water stains on the interior and I filled in some of where the wood "peeled off" from the factory tom mount drill (See "Olympian 7 & 8"). Spurs were missing when I obtained them, and the brackets are a very odd size. Too small for standard 3/8" spurs, but a little too large for 5/16". So I used long 5/16" screws cut to the appropriate length. I know they don't need to be threaded, but the "ridges" of the thread help them fit a little tighter in the brackets and let the wing screws hold them better. They hold firmly with no problems and have rubber tips that fit snugly. (See "Olympian 8"). Finally, with the odd threaded and non-universal threaded inserts the lugs have, I couldn't find key operated tension rods to fit the existing threading, so I replaced all the bass drum lugs. They match almost exactly to the rest of the kit, and the hole spacing was almost exact, I just needed to widen the inside hole slightly, but you don't notice it at all when assembled (See "Olympian 9"). Gibraltar bracket installed for the cymbal L-arm (same hole spacing), and I will include the bottom half of the cymbal L-arm (needs the top half).
Overall, this is a nice kit, and I think the rack and bass fading/darkening looks cool, good mojo in this one! It plays and sounds great, I just wanted to disclose all the issues in fairness, because we are all very thorough on this forum.
$150 plus shipping.
Thanks!
V
