Cool drum! It piqued my interest so I Googled it. Found an online discussion pretty much asking the same question. Here are the answers:

(1) Factory Origin: Tromsa in Hamburg (West Germany)

(2) Peak time period: 1960s-1970s

(3) Tromsa made drums for the following brands:

• Kings (Holland)

• Concorde (Holland)

• Roxy

• Luxor (Germany)

• Voss (Germany)

• Lindbergh (Germany)

• Hohner (Germany)

Here is a quote about them:

"The company(family owned) continued until 1992. [Tromsa, not Kings] The lug design is unique and is the first attempt I can think of to isolate the lugs from the shell and reduce overtones. With well polished bearing edges and the correct heads(not modern heavy heads), they sound really good and have a lot of punch and attack. They are light , simple and straightforward."

Here is the link as well:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Drums-Percussion-648/f/Kings.htm

Hope this helps! Enjoy the drum!

[COLOR="DarkRed"]rapad..can you post a pic of the shell interior ?[/COLOR]

yep, till Monday I will do that.

Many thanks

Here are some pics.

Man this is extremely thin wood !

What kind of wood is it, can you name it?

What can this worth?

Thanks !

http://img150.imageshack.us/i/im000711.jpg/

http://img150.imageshack.us/i/im000712.jpg/

http://img190.imageshack.us/i/im000713.jpg/

hi. just noticed the thread about Kings. they were made by Tromsa but the factory was in Russelsheim not Hamburg. This is a really nice drum you have. Most examples are 6 lugs per head, this one is one of the relatively rare 8 lug parallel snare examples. There is much less stress on the thin 3 ply poplar shells with these. Tromsa were brilliant in keeping costs down and competing with the emerging Japanese products.They actually rolled these Poplar shells as (I presume) fresh green laminates, thus avoiding steam bending. I have 20 such shells----all predating 1970 and with the exception of 2 or 3 abused ones , they have all stood up. This drum looks to be from the 1980's to me. Snare wires are hard to come by for these but sometimes adaptions can be made. Value?-----difficult to say of course. In mint condition to the right buyer, maybe 200.00.; online due to shipping and uncertainties; well; I'd pay about 100.00.

That seems so inexpensive to me considering how rare it is,unless there are lots of them in Europe.

I guess, I am going by comparison to Roxy and Tromsa of which I have 10 snares. This one, is a really nice example and they are rare here in N.A. but there are probably lots in Holland and other northern European countries.My experience has been (with Roxy, Tromsa, Trixon and Ajax-----the drums I have) that there is high respect for them here but little interest in them ---after all Ringo didn't play them did he? well he did in fact; while in Hamburg he played Trixon but he neglected to bring them along to the Ed Sullivan show and that's what really matters isn't it?

Great photos of a great drum and also great information. This was the first time I had seen a Kings brand drum and really appreciate the education.Yes Sir

Hi there,

I am new here and I will introduce myself and my swingstar kit later on.

Since I am from Holland, I learned playing drums on KINGS. Indeed, light drums and reasonable quality, but good sound. Mainly used around the eighties.

My experiences:

-Some models have plastic lugs, that will break easily after some while

-Wrapping comes off easily, if you find a wrapped drum nowadays

-Internal snare mechanism, solid, but once broken not easy to fix.

-last but not least: comes with old european size drumheads (361mm)

Especially the odd size drumheads makes them not valuable over here. Many of these drums are being sold for less than 30/ 40 euros, sometimes even less and end up with people that don't have the experience to respect them, but just want a cheap, practicing drum for there young kids.

If you need more "inside" information, just ask!

grtz Wouter