I did not know that pearl made drums. Mark will be able to help you. drum4fun! Good luck! They are great looking. What they are on the inside will be important. Have you taken them apart yet?

Catherine, Pearl has been in business for many decades. In the 60's they made what we call "stencil" drums; cheaply made drums with a multitude of brand names.

Say you were a US distributor of musical instruments and you wanted a line of inexpensive drums to sell as an alternative to the high priced American drums out there. You'd contact Pearl in Japan and negotiate a deal for X number of drumsets. You'd then choose features you wanted and a name that was unique to your company, like Norma, Zim-Gar, Whitehall, US Mercury, Majestic, Apollo. Stewart, etc. There were dozens and dozens of brand names.

A lot of these "stencil" drums were made by Pearl. It wasn't really until the early 70's that Pearl started marketing drums under their own name, and now, they make world-class drums. I had a set of Pearls in the 90's, and they were among the best drums I ever owned. I just passed on a red sparkle set of Pearls on sale for like $1350, a fraction of their usual retail value. They were gorgeous. I wanted them, but it was not to be.

Gosh where do you think all those drums are?

Hi Catherine!

When you come over to look at the completed Rogers kit , check out my MIJ snare drum collection again. Lots of cool stencil names on them!

-Mark

So they are at your place!

They're out there, and there are a lot of them. It's only lately that people have been pricing them higher. Ten years ago, you couldn't give away an old 60's MIJ set. People threw them away or sold them for a pittance, but over the last few years, interest in them has spiked, and now, you see some crazy private sellers (and a few delusional drum dealers) trying to ask stupid money for drums that are completely inferior in every way to American made drums of that time period.

The Japanese stencil drums have their own vibe, and can sound pretty good, with good heads, proper tuning, and sometimes, re-cut bearing edges, but the hardware is usually always terrible. People have tried to give me old Japanese hardware and I turn it down. I have a Japanese snare stand that I got with my recent purchase and I'm amazed it's still in one piece. Maybe I can sell it.