I have a nice gold sparkle late 50's Gretsch kit.
When I bought the drums a few years ago I had to restore them but I did nothing to the finish. The wrap is superb on all drums except for a 2" crack that was near a lug and now has migrated to the lug and around one side of the lug. There is no way I want to take the wrap off this original drum unless I have to at some point.
Is there any way to stop the migration of the crack?
I put some glue with gold sparkle in the crack when I got the drum in 2009. I made it less noticable but really did not fix it of course.
The one photo shows the overall finish. It's pretty nice and too bad it has that one small split in it.