I see 9 plies. The color change is the difference between a trees sapwood and it`s heart wood. Attached is a crosscut of a log that shows the two clearly. When they unwrap the log like a roll of paper to make plywood at the mill, they start getting sapwood, then heartwood and they separate the two. This allows them to book them or stack them as they need.

The inner ply is knot free and the most expensive of the sheets, it`s very thin because that`s all it needs to be to get the interior finish. Most cabinets have it as the outer face layer too.

I've attached some pics. The first one is your shell, and I've marked it with alternating red & blue lines on each of the ply's that are visible to me. I add a black back around what looks like the fattest ply and I am thinking it is actually 2 ply's, but is kind of obscured due to the router marks/bearing edge. I would pump some light on that area and look the entire edge over for a seam.

The second image is of the ply count on my older natural maple Coliseum. The lay-up has a mixture of maple and poplar and is a bit easier to distinguish between ply's. Also it is a good reference because sometimes you will find a whopper ply in the lay up.

The third image is of my modern classic maple exotic Birdseye snare that is ten-ply. While the forth image is of an odd angle with the same drum and it looks like the thing has nine ply's - but it is ten.

The fifth image is of a four-ply layup that we were trying to figure out for another forum member - it has a stained outer veneer - but definitely 4 ply's.

This example is another one that we were trying to figure out for a member and it is a seven ply lay up. It's pretty fuzzy when you enlarge it but I counted seven in that case. Oh and this was a modern Ludwig 7-ply layup, which is why it is marked up as 1-2/1-2-3/-1-2 for the inner/middle/outer ply lay-up.

Odd ball gave a great explanation for differences in color for same species ply - even from the same piece of wood!

Great responses...thanks!

I'd bet a dollar that most of the 'mega-plys' are actually 2 plies of the same layer from the donor tree, but they're just really hard to distinguish from one another for some reason. I'm amazed at the precision that manifests in the final results with these great shells. Like layers 7 & 8 (counting from inner to outer) of the pic of my shell that Hoppy marked...the faintest line that splits that layer into two makes me think that that segment of shell is 2 plies instead of 1 big ply.

Heaven forbid we should ever try this stuff on a shell with reinforcement rings!

HA! I've done that too! Here's a shot of my 14" tom, it's a 3-ply mixed specie lay-up.

Check out the poplar ply... it's a whopper that's almost as large as the dog-gone re-ring :-)