Zenstat, I hear you- Pearl deserves the credit for such an early and futuristic model. I just can't believe more people haven't taken a good look inside these Presidents- they are a distant galaxy beyond 60's Pearl's luan shells. Look how thin and those edges- on a 40 year old drum. Love itMallet Player2

I'm pretty sure the yellow fiberglass were around in '76 or earlier, as I was shopping for my first pro drum set and one was for sale that was set up at a nearby hotel bar. It was a concert tom set with the opal white wrap and it had the yellow shells. I was impressed by how it "glowed". There seems to be no functional difference between the gray and the yellow shells, only the color is different.

Some of those Presidents were phenolic shelled. Heavier than regular luan,with more tone and bottom end . The grey primer inside hid the true nature of the material and the edges were done up real nice.

Hey TommyKay

You wrote"Some of those Presidents were phenolic shelled. Heavier than regular luan,with more tone and bottom end . The grey primer inside hid the true nature of the material and the edges were done up real nice."

I don't want to beat the topic into the ground but just to keep information here factual: President series Pearl drums were never made of wood. This term "phenolic" is a word we are using to describe a process were the manufacturer takes fiber strips or a kind of pulp and mixes it with this resin compound and when the process is finished the result is similar to masonite (got this info on phenolics from Wikipedia).

I have a thick shelled wood kit from the same era with the gray coated, wood interiors- nice drums but completely different.

The reason I get so excited about these President drums is how unbelievably modern the design is- very sharp edges, thin shells that seem to age better than any other material I have seen. I have a Tempus fiberglass snare and my President snares are very comparable. What's the price of a new Tempus kit these days- a lot for sure. These Presidents are the best way to get into the same ball park for sound and durability at a much better price.

Some Coronet kits were made from the same material, and I'd put em against any high end drums I've ever used. This material turned out to be a happy accident in more ways than one : for example the seams and edges could be worked more precisely without the splintering of luan. Was there any connection between Pearl and Coronet ?

I believe Coronet is one of the stencil names owned by a musical instrument distributor out of San Antonio, TX. If not, it was Brooklyn Music Supply that owned the name and Pearl built them and badged them for the distributor.

Hi,

I bought in a second hand shop in France a Bassdrum Pearl President in poor condition. I think this is the first model from 1968 or 1969 ?, there was aswell the original Remo sound master skins mounted on it. It is not wood but light brown plastic fiber. I tried the bassdrum with original skins, the sound was very bad!

I changed with new skins it´s sound better but not as good as a new Starclassic Tama for exemple. if anyone has more information about year production of this particular one thanks to share.

Regards,

Eiffeil.

...more pictures of that old one....

Hi folks,

This is something I thought you might be interested in. I have attached a page from a Pearl catalogue from about 1976, the kits in the catalogue have the tom holder that was a copy of the Rogers Swivomatic holder.

The page shows shells as:

Fiberglass (F)

Maple (M)

President(PH), which is phenolic

Crystal(TP), which is acrylic

Artist(FW), which is wood fiberglass

Dynamic(W), which is a wood shell - Luan maybe?

To me this shows what an innovative company Pearl was in the 1970's and offered drummers a great variety of sounds to choose from. I have a late 70's fiberglass kit - 22x14, 12x8, 16x16 and to me sounds great. It has the 7/8" tube tom mounts from the factory and I updated it with SP30 bass drum spurs. PS3 on the bass drum, EC2's on the toms. It is loud, punchy and resonant and sounds huge under microphones.

Cheers,

Shrek :D

Hey Shrek,

that is the first time I had seen this page in English- thanks for posting it. Here is the page from the Japanese catalog once again:

[IMG]http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn87/Osakabop/Screenshot2011-06-04at45107PM.png[/IMG]

So it looks like there were more offerings in the US than in Japan at that time- Pearl is so interesting like that - they were always offering different stuff, different badges, different features....