Dude! You can't, you simply cannot do this. I'd like to stop you by buying the kit, but it's not in my budget with three kids. That is a beautiful set, and anything that you get done might be as great, but it's just not the way to go.

You know this.

Yes - I have guilt - I'm a fan of old drums.....any old drums. I have some antique drums that I just leave as is and only have tucked new heads and carefully cleaned. I'm getting a lot of feedback about this .....mostly in the "do not do this' comment area. I'm far from going ahead with this as Ray's quite busy. So at the very least - for now - it's not a done deal. I'm hoping there is a buyer out there and I know if I do sell them I will have huge seller's remorse. I bought them from the daughter of the original owner...he passed away in 2005. Same first name as me....Gary. He bought them new from a little music store (long since closed down) in the small town where I lived here in BC Canada. His daughter said he bought them in 1960. I'm thinking the shells were probably made in late 59....were on the shelf for a while....an order came in and they were shipped out to Canada to the music store. And who knows if Gary bought them right away or if they were sitting there for a while. I say late 50's because the bass, rack tom and snare are 3ply and the floor tom is 6ply. Gretsch was changing from 3 to 6 ply in the late 50's. Some kits at this time went out with mixed ply (3 and 6 as in my kit) - it's not uncommon to find kits with a mix of plies from this transition time.

If someone would be interested in buying the drums I do have some Gretsch parts and maybe even an orphaned drum or two to thrown in with the sale. I'd have to see what I have in 'the drum room'

Post them in the For Sale section...

Cheers

There's no guarantee that the outer ply under that wrap is particularly nice looking. For that reason alone I'd be leery of stripping them when they still look nice as is. I'm not sure if those are worth $4 grand but you can figure that whatever you spend having them stripped and redone they will be worth at least that same amount less after it's done (for example take a nice $1000 drum set, spend $500 having them rewrapped and now you have a nice looking drum set worth $500). Rewraps generally only make financial sense if the original wrap is truly messed up although sometimes aesthetics outweigh dollar concerns.

But they are yours, so whatever makes you happy is the way to go.

I discussed with Ray the possibility of the outer ply being not good. He said he could fix that.

I am very much ahead cost-wise at this time as one of the cymbals that was given to me when I bought the drums is worth $100s more than what I paid for the drums. I'm sure i could get back what I've invested even after the cost of refinishing.

As I've said above.....I'm months away from making a decision on this. It's great to have this feedback. Thanks

Those drums look great and i can't see why anybody would want to alter that...We have all seen horror stories of painted awesome vintage kits because the owner didn't like the retro finish but you understand what many others didn't at the time.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. If it were me and I wanted some custom work done I'd either find a good name-but-beat-to crap tubs or buy some new raw Keller shells and go nuts.

I'm trying to sell them now

I've decided they are way too nice to alter. I did have them for sale for a few days but have decided not to sell at this time. I'm having way too much fun playing them.

I'm trying NOT to buy more drums ....that's why I want Ray to do something with the drums I have. But...these late 50s Gold Sparkle Gretsch drums are just way too nice to alter.

After alll....even if I own them now....I'm only the 'caretaker' so-to-speak of them at this time. They will surely outlive me.

An aside: Have you ever thought about this: The new drums we buy now...the new ones we have...will be 'Vintage drums" or at the very least 'old drums" some day....and maybe sought after....just like we now look for the 'vintage' drums of yesteryear.