Hello,
The post by Drumbob about the Pearl Aqua Sparkle kit got me thinking about the overall prices of MIJ drums lately, say within the last year. It seems like, at least from an asking price standpoint, they have gone up considerably.
I got into vintage drums because of MIJ kits. They have that vintage vibe, look cool, sounded good (with proper heads/tuning) and most importantly for me, were an affordable way to have a vintage kit. I own many MIJ kits, and all for about the collective price of maybe 2 Rogers Dayton or 60's Ludwig kits.
Obviously the build quality was inferior to the USA stuff. But, you can always make MIJ kits better: New heads, better hoops, bearing edge re-cutting, interior shell lacquering (for sonic and strength purposes), better replacement hardware (cymbal arms, brackets etc.). I can tell you that once I polish up an old MIJ, make improvements, and tune it up, I'm just as proud and happy to play one of them as I would be for 65 Ludwig Clubdate.
Does everyone agree that prices (at least asking prices) have gone up in the last year or so? What do you think the reasoning for this is? I would love to blame TV shows like "American Pickers" "Storage Wars" or "Pawn Stars" etc., just because they have many people thinking, "Hey if I have something old, that means it's desirable and worth a lot of money!". Of course that is only true in a very small percentage of cases (most old stuff is just "old"). However, those shows have been around for awhile now, and are past their prime in popularity, and have been for a few years now as compared to their heyday 5-10 years ago, so I don't necessarily think it's because of those TV shows.
Also, I think another reason might be misguided internet research, especially since those Facebook "Selling Group" pages are now popular (I don't use Facebook, but I've heard that from reliable sources:) ). For example, daughter is cleaning out the home of her father after he has passed or moved into a facility. She hauls his old drum set out from the attic and has no idea what it is or what it might be worth, she just knows it's old, because she remembers her Dad playing it when she was young. If it's an old (fill in the stencil name here) kit, she types "Vintage Drum Set Value" into Google, and all it shows her is Ludwig, Rogers and Gretsch kits from that era, so she thinks "Well, this looks the same as those", and she prices them in accordance with the stuff she found on Google.
I would love to here your thoughts and opinions on this.
V