The wraps (particularly sparkles) fade like buggery - that might be part of it.

Prems just don't seem to have any great cach? in the US yet - same story with Sonor. Both excellent quality brands for the most part but just don't have the long list of stars some of the brands, notably Ludwig, had way back then.

Also possible it's just in terrible shape. As always, pix will tell you a lot.

D

Thanks Antipodes... I spoke to him yesterday. Indeed some fading and missing tom mounts on both bd's. Theres a dent in one of them too. Other than that he said they were in decent shape. I decided I would take them and was planning on heading out this morning but theres apparently someone else going who he spoke to first. I'm pretty annoyed as I told him yesterday I was basically coming. Freakin figures.... We'll see, if it doesnt pan out with the other buyer...

The other guy with the slingerland has a set of Sonor Force, but theyre a little higher than I want to spend and not a 60's kit. I want a vintage look and sound.

Keep an eye on ebay for the Sonor kits from the 60s. Often really stupidly under-priced for the sound and look you get. And (as with Rogers) you actually have vintage fittings and stands that can work for a contemporary player - even if you bang 'em a bit.

Good luck with the Prems though....the kits I had were all good solid sounding drums.

Cheers,

David

Well well well... the phone rang this afternoon, after I got back from looking at those Slingerlands (which were not for me, nice sounding drums tho).

So the 'other' buyer for the Premiers did not show. Part of me thinks he DID show and the drums were beat to hell, but I digress. Anyway, I am heading out to NYC very early tomorrow am, with my 5 yr old daughter in tow to pick up the set, unless they are busted up, I am taking them. I will post some pics sometime this weekend.

Moving forward I am gonna need to locate some hardware, as apparently theres some missing. I will keep whichever of the two bassdrums is in better shape (or which ever sounds better).

David - how is the 60's Premier hardware? Theres some flat base stands I am watching now, they look very cool, but a little delicate. Wonder if they're any good. I am not looking to completely finish the kit all original, but if theyre reasonable and good why not. I really need hardware that will hold up to light/moderate gigging. I play out about 1-2x a month, but I hit pretty hard.

Off to bed, I got to be up early....

Got em... Very faded on Bass drums, the toms are ok, some fading but there is water damage on the floor toms bottom reinforcement hoop and bearing edge. Will post pics later. Dunno if I am up for a restore myself... I need some group encouragement here!

I think all flat bases are a bit fragile but the Premier ones were comparatively solid. Bass drum pedals were good from that era. UK ebay may be the place to look - even though the US dollar is screwed the stuff is plentiful and relatively cheap.

The drums certainly werent in playable condition when I picked em up. It looks like this kit was abused and certainly never cared for in the least bit in the 40 plus years of its existence. I had some buyers remorse for sure. But I decided I will get them playable, without worrying to much about going crazy with restoring them, more like a restoration light. Started to clean em up and the chrome looks really good. The wraps are very faded in some spots, not gonna look new, but thats ok. There are no tears or anything in them so at least thats good. Screws for the lugs were stripped on the inside of the bassdrum (water damage), so I didnt disassemble it. Just cleaned it with everything in place. The Bon-Ami I switched for Comet and added that to some Dawn and it worked great. The rack tom I took apart completely and it looks very good. I am going to do the floor tom tonight, but it has some water damage to the bottom re-ring, so I am going to go easy on it and just clean everything in place witout taking it apart. The second bass, which is 20x14 I am not going to use, and will do a simple clean up and try to sell it. It's got some damage to it. I could part it out too as it may have more value that way.

I had some fun realizing heads I had here don't fit the floor and rack tom. Sweet! What a pain in the ass. Bought some more heads that fit snug on the drum but are still not right. I put them on the 12 to see what it sounded like, not too bad, but I want the right ones.

After some web research I found out about the Remo Pre-international heads. Called Remo and they have a bunch in stock but they have to be ordered by a dealer. Thankfully, my local shop has what I need in stock, only all coated. So I will be putting coated heads on both sides. Going to get them later.

All in all so far it's been kinda fun doing this, but by no means would I consider doing a major rewrap myself or full resto. I'd like to get these drums playable with minimal investment and see how it goes from there. The Pre International heads for the 2 toms are going to run me $88 usd. So I am at $238 so far.

I am going to move my next post on this to the restoration thread and post some pics there.