First off, I'm a new member and would like to say hello to all. I am just starting to collect vintage drums. I have recently purchased a Kent (I think) Drumset but there are no badges anywhere. The bass pedal, which is direct drive, reads Kent on the footboard. It came with, what appear to be, the original cymbals. All of the heads, which appear to be original as well, read E.W. Kent Drum Heads by Weather King. The shells appear to be maple. I have seen catalog pics on Ebay, and I beleive this kit is complete, being a 3 piece set. (snare, bass and mounted tom) My question is, did kent make drums with no tags at all? If so, what years might this have happened? It just seems kinda weird for someone to have gone to the trouble of putting E.W. Kent drum heads on the set and have the original hardware. Any info would be greatly appreciated. I can post pics if need be. Thanks to all.
Kent drums with no badges?
They did use paper tags which would easily come off. We could probably tell by the strainer on the snare drum and the lugs on the tom and bass drum.
David
Thanks for helping me out. I hope these pics will give you alittle more info. I had to resize them the get them to upload.
Looks all kent to me, I have a set of Orange Sparkles (In pieces) and all that hardware looks like that.
Thank you. Do you have any idea of the year of this set? I was told it was the '60s.
60s or 70s is a good guess.
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I have a Kent set from 69' ( the bass drum has a stamp date inside ) Mine had the badges torn off ( from previous owner ) but the lugs gave it away. Though my set was from when Kent started to out get parts from japan so the strainer looks like every other stencil kits strainer.And the bass and tom have seperate lugs as opposed to the single lugs like many of the kits used.Unless your kit has a stamp date its a best guess as to the year since Kent drums were pretty much all the same until 68' - 69'?? Nice looking kit though. I am a Kent freak...Oh an if you have actual kent cymbals....you may want to contact Meinl Cymbals. They made every kent cymbal thats out there...and matter of fact sent a brand new meinl to someone in exchange for his kent cymbal.I read that in one of my latest issues of DRUM!.
Not a Guru, just addicted to drums
- Jay
The kit came with the original crash and hi hats. I'll have to take a closer look at the drums to see if there are any date stamps. I wasn't aware that Kent date stamped their drums, nice to know though. So you think this is from the 70's? When did Kent stop selling drums? I thought it was around the early to mid seventies. Since you are a Kent freak, do you know where I may be able to get the original tom arm? That's the only thing missing from this set to make it playable. (more like displayable) Not that it's gonna get used at all. It's just an addition to a collection.
They stopped making drums around 1970 I believe. Maybe 71-72. The company simply just collapsed under all the other names that were emerging.And just the fact that my set is more Japanese means they were trying to stay alive. As far as the tom arm goes there is always a few Kents listed on ebay. perhaps you could find another bass,tom,etc... or just the tom arm.And most of the stuff sells for reasonable prices so you won't have to dig deep to get anything.If you don't see one listed this week just check weekly...like I said always something. here is a few photos of my kit so you can see what I mean by seperate badges and more " Japanese "
[IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i187/ARCHSxDOMAIN/MVC-0391F.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i187/ARCHSxDOMAIN/MVC-038F.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i187/ARCHSxDOMAIN/MVC-044F.jpg[/IMG]
Another thing that got me with my Kent kit is the lack of normal bass drum hoops. They are rather 20" rims where as you can see the batter side has a clip on the bottom to mount the pedal and it has one on top as well. I can only assume for some type of stick mounting device similar to Ludwigs spring style one that attatched to the bass drum hoop.I'll see if I can't dig up or take a photo of the stamp date for you. I wasn't aware they did it either until I saw it. And the badges I had was the Blue / White circular flower looking badge around the air holes. They were ripped off but the backing remained behind the grommet for me to definatly id them as kent.
Not a Guru, just addicted to drums
- Jay
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