Seeing everybody is throwing these up here.....thought I would throw mine up I just scored.... for $35.
Needs cleaning, but I understand it is a fabulous snare. Seamless shell. Is my dating right at '84-'86? I have always preferred triple-flanged to Die-cast, so this should be pretty great. Remo Diplomat....not much experience with those. Looks like original heads?? Could they be from 31 years ago?
The batter head may have been changed if there isn't a Tama logo on it, bottom head is certainly original. Great snare drum. What is the serial number? And I would say it is a mid 80's model based on the lugs.
THese are some of my favorite "sleeper" snares. I use a red-badge swingstar snare regularly for my street orchestra/fanfare/outdoors type gigs. They can be counted on mechanically and mine has paid for itself 100s of times over. A great way to spend 35 bucks! Congrats!
Seeing everybody is throwing these up here.....thought I would throw mine up I just scored.... for $35.
As somewhat of a newbie to the drum thing... and very much a newbie to the vintage drum thing I appreciate people throwing things up. I've been learning so much from you guys it is stupid. Every score for somebody is a lesson for me. And from what I've learned I've acquired a few very nice sounding toys!
And it is always good seeing something go to somebody who will appreciate it! Nice score!
No clean/polished pics yet - but I can share the serial. Archxangel wanted to know the serial.
I tuned this up and played it over the weekend. Despite it having a Diplomat on top, this snare has one heck of a crack when a rim shot is played! Must be the seamless shell really is the best feature / value of this snare. It will serve very well as a replacement for my old 6.5 deep metal snare I used to have. Mission accomplished - for $35!
Serial - when does this date this snare? So far I believe it is somewhere between '84-'86.
Now that is quite a bargain! Cost of heads.
I'd say late 84 early 85 for date. They switched to that style lug in 84 and I believe by 85 they were no longer using the Red T badge, but switched to the black. The serial I was curious about because I know the higher models used the year in front of the number. For $35 you got a great drum. Any Tama made in Japan is good quality and won't let you down.
Yep, 84'ish drum. Black badge far better than Red. RoyalStar (blk) as opposed to Swingstar (red).
Will have a crack into next week. Congrats!!
Creighton
The first Swingstar generations had red badges and the later version has black badges.
I have a snare from each period. The red badged is from 1982 and it has "82-" at the beginning of serial number. I'm not sure about the black badged.
The lugs are different, not just in snare but in whole kit.
First generation snare lugs are more "flat" and have 3 vertical lines.
1st generation:
http://www.tamadrum.co.jp/anniversary/expansion.php?cat_id=49&now=2
2nd generation:
http://www.tamadrum.co.jp/anniversary/expansion.php?cat_id=58&now=3
http://www.tamadrum.co.jp/anniversary/expansion.php?cat_id=71&now=1
Hey John!
Nice score for $35! That Remo Diplomat Mark 5 is the earlier version of the M5. It's a very thin head, for low volume playing. Diplomat heads are 7.5mil, but the Mark 5/M5 is only 5mil...really thin! Keep your 2B sticks away from it!
-Mark
