couple of more pics of snare drum and comparison between common Remo 14" head and bottom Emperor I found on snare

Older one is larger in diameter and also different metal hoop on head

That is one really cool drum! Sorry that I do not have any more info to add, but just wanted to say that this is one of the most remarkable drums in terms of character and style!

I love the lugs.

I think I have seen them before.

Please,.........Where were these made and when?

Thank You

Royal is brand from Amsterdam, Holland

According to article by Tom Vermulst, this snare is made in 50's,probably second half of 50's

In the start of production after WWII lugs were copy of Swiss brand

Imperial and Holland brand in start was named Triumph and drums were made for their customer

When they started their own brand Royal, they changed design of lugs and everything else, but lugs on my snare drum are same as on Swiss Imperial and Holland Triumph, so my guess is that this snare is from start of their production when they still have some lugs from previous brand

Here is link on complete article

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/royal/index.html

Cool badge!!

Cheers

Mr. Tom Vermulst wrote a book on Royal (in Dutch).

I will have a look for you in the coming days.

This type of lugs can also be found on Van der Glas / Majestic drums (Dutch too).

As Triumph (and their lugs) were discontinued, they "borrowed" the lugs.

And I might have some mm - sized drum heads left around the 14 inch mark.

Probably 35.9 cm and 36.7 cm and 36.8 cm.

But yours could be as well be 36.1 or 36.3mm

Book check (freely translated summary)

- Looise & Vogel are engineers (no instruments yet) in Amsterdam

- Looise & Vogel made their first snare in 1944 after they'd made some parts for a Dutch drum building company.

- Van Wouw (imports Spanish guitars) came to Looise & Vogel (1945) with a Swiss Imperial snare and asked if they could make such a snare.

- Triumph snares were built for Van Wouw from that point onwards

- 1952: Van Wouw asked to stop production of Triumph drums. He had plenty in stock and sales dropped after governmental freeze of average Joe's spenditure after WWII

- This meant a drop in income for Looise & Vogel as well. And they started to built their own snares / drums: Royal was born.

- 1957: Van Wouw returns for a second period of Triumph production, although numbers were limited

- 1957- 1962: Both Royal and Triumph snares were built by Looise and Vogel in Amsterdam

- 1962: Van Wouw stops with sellings drums, and shifts back to importing guitars

About your snare:

Shell: 100% Triumph, based on the bead

Oddities: This snare looks as it was made for marching purposes, based on the hoops.

I've never seen such hoops on a concert snare. Marching snares usually were free floating (no lugs) and single tension. In addition: your type of shell usually had a sophisticated parallel snare mehanism. Yours is lacking this and the holes for it.

My guess would then be, that either this was a special order. Or (more logical) this was indeed a transition snare. They had some old snare shell blanks left from Triumph and turned them into Royal.

Question then is; was it after the 1st (post 1952) or the 2nd Triumph period (post 1962)?

Not sure: No clues for that:

-your badge is the first engraved version. However, it is not stated when they switched to the second printed version.

-in a later stadium (not sure when) Royal swithed from the mm sized drums to the normal 14" sized drums.

I hope this helps.

Cheers Wouter

Wow, thank you Wouter for such a great info

I will measure head today to see how much is in mm

So, there is dilema about which period of Royal it is, first or second?

You can't decide it from lug design?