[COLOR="Purple"]Big Daddy's one of the Kent dudes here; he will probably chime in...but judging from the hardware, we are talking mid-'50's or older...[/COLOR]

Hey... my ears were burning :) I'd guess early to mid 50's and possibly a student model, due to the fact that the strainer is the basic, no frills model, and there are no lug screw guides.

The shell is likely the same as the *pro* models. 2 ply maple. Have a look inside - sometimes Kent actually dated their drums (stamped or in pencil).

There's no way to accurately date Kent drums as they didn't include serial numbers. Best guess is: White/Gold badge = early to late 50's. Blue/Gold badge = early 60's to early 70's. Rectangular blue badge = 70's imports.

Some Blue/Gold flower badge Kents have import shells so be careful and always check the grain pattern on the inside of the shell. Up and down = import, while round the shell = american.

Nice snare!

Thanks for the replys, guys.

I checked the inside of the shell when I disassembled the snare today and I didn't see any date stamped on the inside. I guess 50's is my best guess as well.

The strainer is a bit jangley. By that, I mean that there's no throw off and there's not really anything holding the strainer to the snare except for the knob in the picture. The screws do not go into the picture.

I'm not sure if the snare is two-ply or not. I'll have to examine it further, but upon first inspection it looks like just one ply. Is that possible?

-Jon

Hey Jon - It's *possible* that the drum is a single ply, but it's more likely that the plies are glued nice and tight and they match very close in color, giving the illusion of one ply.

RE: the strainer, it's overly simplistic design leads me to believe it's a student model. Just tension them and that's it - No other adjustment.

Believe it or not, with some good heads and some creative tuning, these old no-lug/single tension Kent's can sound pretty decent. I tune them on the low side and slap a moon gel or two on the top head to keep ringing to a minimum. They can sound very fat.