Good point re the Radio King. But the thing about owning an all original (including calfskins) drum and using it to play gigs are two different things. If you have a car that you use to drag race, you use different tires on it than you do when you drive on snow. I guess the point is that things like drumheads are the types of alterations that are reversible. They don't permanently alter anything. So, you can have a Radio King with an Ambassador on it and use that on a gig. But when you go to sell it, you can change over to some calfskins and sell it in original condition (or closer to it).

I have a 1953 Sherwood drum and I always wanted to know what it would have sounded like when it came from the Leedy Ludwig factory. So, that meant that I had to bite the bullet and buy some real calfskins for it. I did. Now, I have a very-close-to-original condition drum that gives me a sense of what snare drums from that era kinda sounded like.

Re-wrapping or re-cutting bearing edges -things like that, are considered permanent alterations.Burger Kin