Hate to say it, but they were probably ordered without mounting hardware, and the Rogers mounts installed by the original dealer.

I remember in the early 80's, Halpin Music in Alton, IL was a Gretsch dealer. They ordered all of their kits without hardware and installed Pearl mounts. At the time, it wasn't considered doing anything bad, and if fact, was considered an improvement.

You have to remember, Gretsch hardware was still pretty primitive at the time. The Memri-Loc, Pearl, & Tama were state of the art. Ludwig joined in with their Modular line, along with Slingerland's Magnum hardware.

So, while I agree that it's a shame that it's there, it was probably originally sold with the Rogers mounts. I also agree that it is overpriced.

Steve

I'd agree, that is probably the original hardware to the set. Not sure how that would effect "collector's value" though. Probably no EXTRA holes there, and the Rogers stuff certainly is superior in function to what Gretsch had at the time but that probably won't sway a potential buyer to pay a maximum amount.

Very common with Gretsch since their own hardware was pretty substandard up until they introduced the Techware stuff in the early 1980's.

Even then there were better options out there. When I ordered my new Gretsch set in 1987 I ordered it without any tom mounting hardware. I opted to use Yamaha tom mounts but, fortunately, RIMS mounts and a Pearl rack made it so I didn't have to drill anything to do so.

A friend of mine has a studio workhorse SSB kit that was setup with Slingerland set-o-matic hardware.

Anything was better than those monster mounts!