The Pearl Drum history website has a picture of a similar drum-similar lugs and throw,dated at 1964.That said,hopefully Osakabop will chime in,because Pearl drums are not easily dated,like American drums are.This drum,I would say,is a typical 60's configuration.The 50's-60's drums,I don't know,seem to run into each other.Not till the President era do they seem to be specificly dateable(more or less).

$50 is fine to me for a metal Pearl drum.Looks OK.

Doesn't look that "beat" to me. It is a 45+ year old MIJ, so that would be considred good condition to most. Here is my suggetion: Take it down to lugs off, take a very fine automotive compound, such as turtle wax rubbing compound and polisch all of the chrome and other metal using it. I polish all of my chrome this way. It is messy and takes a lot of time, no doubt. When you are done, you have a shine unequaled by other methods. I have tried using Dawn and other products to clean parts and nothing comes close or removes nearly as much of that old crud. It is a pain, I will not lie, but the results are nothing short of amazing. Then if have one of those microfiber lens cloths you can take off the fingerprints once reassembled. Nothing comes close to the results of this process. Do not think it is something you can accomplish in an hour, it will take more than that just to do the lugs if you take your time and cut through all the years of yuk. Now, for the tension screws I take a screw gun and nutdriver bit that fits the head of the t-rods, some mineral oil and some 3X or 4X steel wool and run the screws in and out of the oil soaked wool. It also cuts all those years of yuk out of the threads and leaves them lubricated so they don't stick and tune easily. All said and done, you leave the shell and lugs protected by the compound and the screws by the mineral oil.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry x-mas all,

I wouldn`t be too fooled by this badge- they were used off and on after the early 60s into the very early 70s. I think your snare there looks an awful lot lke this 1972 steel shell model. A lovely drum. I want to state here and now that I absolutely love the Pearl 60s snare strainer- a shown in your phpto. It is smooth, easy to adjust and the switch is perfectly designed to be able to be toggled on and off easily with your stick when you are using side stick rim clicks with just a small sidewards motion. I always thought they were "cheap" but using all makes and models, and recently paying 90$ here for a new nickelworks strainer for my Fibes snare- I have realized the perfection of these. Anyway, I digress- I say this snare of your is actually 70-72 with an odd badge. I would disassemble the whole drum and scrub it down with baking soda and water paste with a soft toothbrush- I bet that thing would look brand new. I would love to have that one (that`s a hint)

[IMG]http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn87/Osakabop/Pearl72screenshot.png[/IMG]

Thanks for the responses! I'm enjoying playing the snare and owning a little piece of the history. :)

OsakaBop, I'm seeing a couple other differences aside from the badge. The snare in your picture does not seem to have the stick saver hoops, and the internal dampener (not sure what this is called) is on the other side of the strainer. I agree though, it looks very similar otherwise. Must be from the same time period give or take a few years? Very cool!

I think I'm actually going to leave the snare in its dirty state, at least for now. I kind of like that it looks as old as it is! You can't tell from the pictures, but there are a few spots where the chrome is flaking a bit too. I don't want to take off any more.

Hey, that`s great you`re enjoying it- I do think the 72 drum in the photo has stick saver hoops (rounded inward) - it might just be hard to see the detail. all the others I have seen from around then still had them. I understand about not cleaning it but still I don`t think baking soda paste and a soft brush would do any damage to it whatsoever.