The badge is likely the older version, and yes, a previous owner likely painted the interior to look "better". Not better to me, but to him/her.

To my knowledge, the later and lower end Pearl fiberglass models in the 80s used a thick fiberglass shell that was light in color. The President brown fiberglass shells are very thin walled. I can't comment about the size of the badge.

A friend of mine got a kit of pearls in 1978/1979,at the time pearl offered a fiberglass shell and a hybrid wood fiberglass shell,my friend had the latter and the interior fiberglass portion was definitely white in color,as I remember it was white or a very light cream color.I also remember that I could easily see the difference between the wood and fiberglass.

Those are different I think. I am a huge fan of those 70/80s Pearl Artist series Maple/Fiberglass shells. I have one snare and it's really spectacular. One studio I work out of has a Maple Fiberglass full kit and I WANT IT.......

The wood fiberglass I haven't played- I heard they were Luan and fiberglass but I want to try them.

The yellowish all fiberglass shells from the 80s - one club I play here in Japan has exactly that and, to me, they have nothing special and a very limited tuning range- too high they choke and too low they just wrinkle- unlike almost any other drum I've played- very limited range- like one full turn of the key all around and its from choke to wrinkle

Hello Osaka-san et al.,

This thread is timely. The other day I got out my two older Pearl drums (two thirds of my poor man's Canopus Club) and was wondering again about their shell composition. One looks like a lighter brownish fiberglass on the inside and you can see the glassing cloth (if that's what it's called) and how it is formed. That's a 10". The other is a 15x12 tom which I use as bass drum. It has a fairly thin shell and appears to be more like resin impregnated sawdust. I'm not saying it is. Just that's what it looks like. The 15x12 also started out with some sort of mount other than a BT3, although a previous owner installed a BT3 and did it nicely so you don't see any changed holes from the outside. When did BT3 mounts come on the scene, and does that help date the 15x12?

I've seen older Pearl badges which say fiberglass on them but I didn't take note of the details at the time. Neither of these badges say fiberglass or President or anything special on them. Both badges just say:

Pearl®

Japan

What do you experts need to know about the details of the badges and drums to be able to tell me more about them?

Thanks.

Hey zen!!! nice to talk to you.

Here is a shot of the fiberglass shell in the Pearl 1980 catalog

[IMG]http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn87/Osakabop/Screenshot2010-12-06at104211PM.png[/IMG]

Pearl was notorious for different badges in the same model year on the same kinds of drums

The Pearl Fiberglass single-headed Concert Toms of the 70s (that I have owned, anyway) didn't have the extra "FIBER GLASS SHELLS" badge. The extra badges were only on the bass drums and double-headed toms, in both fiberglass and wood-fiberglass (those of course had a "WOOD-FIBERGLASS SHELL" badge). Pearl then kept that up into the eighties with the "MAPLE SHELL" extra badge.

I have a 1978 wood-fiberglass set that I purchased new in 1978 and have kept it as close to "mint" as possible. The lining of fiberglass on the inside of the shells is white, but I've also seen an off-white color. I've also seen and (attempted to restore) ones where the inside was more of a "dirty yellow." I don't remember how white mine actually were when I bought them, but I suspect the color variation could be just the way the color "matures."

Pearl first came out in 1974 with the fiberglass shells,they made two type's a wood 9 ply shell with a white color of fiberglass on the inside of shell you can see the plys of the shell from the edge also this fiberglass did not go all the way up to the edge of the inside of the shell.,they also made a all fiberglass shell a brown color looking shell and a thiner shell than the wood fiberglass shell..Pearl stop making the wood fiberglass shells in the late 70s i think it was 1978,they only made a all fiberglass shell after that...Mikey

Remember in his pre-Yamaha days when Steve Gadd's primary recording kit was comprised of a Gretsch bass drum, a COB Ludwig Supraphonic 400 snare drum and a set of Pearl fiberglass concert toms (with bottom heads installed)? I believe classic tracks such as Chick Corea's "Nite Sprite" and Steely Dan's "Aja" were recorded on that kit...

Anyway, I still have my old Pearl fiberglass kit that my dad purchased from Chuck Molianari's Drum Shack in Honolulu in 1977. I now have them permanently set up in my school band room for my students to play on. I recently installed Remo Vintage A heads on the batter side and they sound great!