Anyone ever have the pleasure of playing one of these British beauties?

Never seen one. I thought they were French?

Hi all

the trade mark was British but they were made in France near Paris by the craftmen of the company Capelle

Never played one but I have the hi hat stand and always loved the bass drum pedal, so if build quality is consistent, it should be very good

http://www.drumarchive.com/Orange/

Hi,
this is my first contribution to vintagedrumforum.com.
I recently finished to bring an old Orange snare drum back to life. The drum has not been played for a while before I bought it on eBay a few months ago. I had to clean everything and substitute one screw of the complex strainer system.
I think the drum is quite rare. The model was shown in a catalogue from Jaques Capelle in a chrome over brass finish. Mine is gold finished (the shell I guess is brass and the rest of the hardware coated steel).
The strainer is a parallel system that is attached to the counter hoop and thus independent from the shell. The snare wires are made of 8 single wires of about 80 cm which results in 16 strings (each wire goes from one side to the other and back). I had to use the old wires as I didn‘t find any new ones of that size. Tuning rods have heads for use with hex wrench. I attached some pictures.
Cheers,
Michael

here is the link to the catalogue, I hope it is OK to post links to other websites: http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/oran...s_catalogs.htm
...and one picture of the strainer with protective housing attached.

Originally Posted by Michimo

here is the link to the catalogue, I hope it is OK to post links to other websites: http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/oran...s_catalogs.htm
...and one picture of the strainer with protective housing attached.

Hi Michimo... and to the forum! What a cool snare drum! The lugs look like Slingerland. Are they original to the drum? Really interesting, and over-engineered, snare mechanism! Is it working well?

-Mark

Hi Mark,
yes, the lugs are original to the drum and also the strainer works well but it took some time to adjust it properly. Unfortunately there is almost no information on these drums on the internet. Maybe on french sites but I‘m not speaking french...

Originally Posted by idrum4fun

Hi Michimo... and to the forum! What a cool snare drum! The lugs look like Slingerland. Are they original to the drum? Really interesting, and over-engineered, snare mechanism! Is it working well?

-Mark

My eyes aren't what they used to be but I think that strainer has coil-over shocks. A suspension for the bottom piece.