Ummmmm....THREE-ply shells? Really? I had an early Big R set with grey interiors and I think they were 5-ply Keller shells....definitely not 3-ply, though. Did they switch to 3-ply shells later?

My kit still had remnants of the older Swivommatic stuff when I got it...like the floor tom brackets....and the wing screws were slightly different on mine, too. I ordered a Swivomatic set in 1974 and by the time it got to me, it was 1975 and so I must have had one of the very earliest Big R kits.

Great drums -probably the most road-able kit I ever had when I was touring around. Mine was piano black cortex...I think was the name.

That butcher block wrap was actually countertop material so it's almost indestructible. The sound of my black cortex kit was...meh, okay...the bass drums have that long support tube that kinda messes with the sound, I think. In those days, I didn't care for a wide-open sound, anyway, so the fact that the drums were so rigid due to the MemriLoc brackets and tubes, wasn't an issue. I wouldn't be interested in anything like that, now, however. They ARE workhorses, though. The MemriLoc stuff changed everything for every manufacturer thereafter.

Doesn't sound like a bad price to me -especially with the bigger bass drum. I dunno...I don't love them enough to get excited about something like that, but they look to be in decent shape.

So far with the recent volley of drums that you've been considering, I like the Sonor teardrop ones.

Actually, I see that some of the Rogers T-rods are replaced with Ludwigs...With that in mind, I'd need to see more pictures. Maybe the kit isn't as nice as I thought.

My mistake, not 3ply, but 5ply with reinforcement hoops.