[COLOR="Navy"]Dean Muller:

Your drum does date to somewhere 1950 - 1953, and the lugs in any case are not original. From a picture alone, and at the limited clarity of this particular one, it's not possible to definitively determine the authenticity of the finish on the lugs. What I can tell you is that in 1935, and a little bit afterwards, Slingerland did make snare drums with the then-new streamline lugs finished in Artgold. Most of these drums were the Broadcasters. The first streamline lugs of 1935 had no lug inserts - the tension rods screwed directly into the lug body itself. It's hard to tell for sure from the picture, but it appears you may have streamlines with no inserts. Is that the case, or is the picture deceiving me?

DrCJW[/COLOR]

Hello Doctor,

Thank you for your response. The Lugs are Streamlines with inserts, the finish on the lug is smooth and rather metalic gold, to me it looks like brass with a laquer over it. The shell is one ply maple with maple reo rings, on the inside of the drum is written "Shell only" in pencil. This is written in a cursive script. The top stick chopper hoop is missing. the finish is silver sparkle that has yellowed evenly with age.

The Artgold finish on the lugs looks very professionaly applied so I am reluctant to have it stripped and chromed at this point, until I can establish if it is factory or not. Is it possible these lugs where a special order?

Dean.