Seems like parts (Lugs, Hoops, Tom Holders etc) are really high but everything else is lower. You can buy a whole Slingerland floor tom for the price of the hoops and leg brackets sold separately. Crazy.

I've noticed that too, but I think I know some of what is going on. I used to make my entire living selling on eBay.

There are a couple of things going on, but one of them is just this simple dynamic. Individual hardware items are usually not sold at auction, they are most often sold as fixed price listings. Buyers who need them, need them badly and often the item you need, if it is available at all, is the only one that is for sale.

Now as to why prices have gone down for complete drums and sets, and not so much for parts. Yes it's the recession alright. When money is tight, it's cheaper to replace the missing lug on that floor tom than to buy a whole drum set. Just as mechanics always have a heyday during recessions, while new car dealers lose their shirts.

It's very odd ... in all of the so-called economic slumps, I have never felt an impact. I realize how this could be interpreted, but I assure you I am no Gates. Seriously, the wife and I in our thirty years together have never not once felt any impact whatsoever. I have read things all through the years about how tough it was and how hard hit selling and buying was and such ... it is like its happening in some other country. I just don't understand stuff like this.

If I wanted to sell something, it sold. If I wanted to buy, I bought. Prices fluctuated, of course, but that has occurred regardless of this countries current economic status. Prices and value and time have always had an intimate dance. I'm sure that at least a portion of this can be explained by my not having television or news in my house. I am not being inundated with the doomsday economic reports. Maybe ...

My gut tells me that the drum market is behaving exactly as has been predicted over five years ago. Several of us debated this topic and we came to the same conclusion ... prices will drop and parts hounds will increase, hitting Slingerland the hardest. A few might recall those discussions. We had no insight into the US economic future status as to what might happen. We did our best to understand the narrow scope of vintage drum buying and selling. A group of guys talking. Nothing more.

I don't believe in the press and honestly have no real evidence to any economic slump. It would be difficult at best for me to bind the lower drum prices to our government.

That's one mans take. Other viewpoints will most assuredly vary.

I have felt every boom and bust in the economy. That aside, this market seems to be in a different cycle to me. Just trying to make sense of it....

All perspectives welcomed.

Some of it may have to do with eBay as well. It has been flooded with Asian dealers. Why pay $400 for a used set when you can buy a brand new one for $189 that is just about as good.

I sell gemstones on eBay. I used to make a handsome living at it. But now eBay is so flooded with asian dealers selling crap that my listings get lost. They use slaves to list items all day long, so I list one stone for every 100 they list.

If they sell 10 out of the 100 they list its a good day. I list ten and sell maybe one. Same ratio, but it takes me hours to list those ten with no help. But they can list dozens all day long with virtually free labor costs. It's impossible to compete.

I would be very surprised if at least some of that dynamic is not at play in what you are seeing. It seems to affect everything else. Why would drums be immune?

I too have not been affected by whatever is supposed to be happening with Ebay prices...This is because I do Ebay strictly as a hobby (albeit a serious hobby)...On the selling end of Ebay: I never rely on an Ebay deal to pay my mortgage or any other important expense/debt that I may have...On the buying end of Ebay: the high-end rare stuff that I like to collect runs the gamut from a "steal" to a "fair, wholesale price" to a "fair price" to "all of the money"... I have found a lot of rare snare drums on Ebay but there are also a lot of deals taking place in the private market place and with high-end dealers like Steve Maxwell, Richard King, Mark Cooper, Donn Bennett etc...

Mike Curotto

The economy has hit the drum market hard, fortunately not so much to guitars and amps.

There's only one type of drum or part that still gets top dollar - the one you need!

Yes, the drum market, and all antique/collectible markets in general, have been hit hard by the recession.

Last night I was watching an episode of Antiques Roadshow from 1998, and they had added the updated 2013 market values of items alongside the '98 values. It was amazing to see that almost everything was worth less now than it was in '98, not even accounting for inflation.

In the past few years, Japanese buyers and dealers really ramped up prices on a lot of things. However, with the recent crash of the JPY (Japanese Yen), the Japanese are virtually out of the market. When you go from a Japanese buyer willing to pay 5K - 6K for a Ringo Jazz Fest to no longer being interested at any price, you are then left with buyers in the States or Europe who are willing to pay more in the range of 2K. Similar bubbles have burst for other favorites of the Japanese such as '70s Black Beauties...they've dropped from 3K - 4K to more in the range of 1K - 2K without those Japanese buyers. If you look at a chart of the JPY over the last year, you'll see the massive drop in value. I often get people commenting that "everything is going to Japan," but that hasn't been true for some time now.

Thankfully cymbals have largely held their value (they've still dropped some, but not nearly as much as drums), which is why I've largely switched over to dealing mostly in cymbals.

And, as Mike mentioned, there are still a lot of high-money deals that never see the public market.

That's interesting - from what some of my "guitar friends" have said, the guitar market crash was significantly worse than the drum market crash. It probably depends on which specific guitars and market-level being discussed.

-Bill

Bill, vintage guitars and amps, Silvertones, danelectros, silverface fender amps are all hold very well. as of course, Fender strats, tele's, Gibson Lp's, Martin acoustics, even some of the high end custom shop stuff is holding well.