Hi everybody, this is my first post. I've got a slingerland kit with black and silver niles badges finished in black diamond pearl. The sizes are as follows: 5&1/2x14 snare, 13x9 tom tom, 16x16 floor tom, and 14x24 bass drum. The bass drum was added to the kit by the previous owner and refinished to match the rest of the kit. The toms and snare are all factory matched and are the 5-ply maple/poplar shells. I've been researching on the internet to find out more about these drums and have found the slingerland articles on this website very helpful. The serial numbers on the 5-ply drums are in the 450,000s so according to the Badge graph, they are from the seventies because it wasn't until 1980 that slingerland got into the 500,000s. The toms are in great shape-the chrome is good, the wrap is fantastic, but the bearing edges are awful! I guess this is common for these shells. The edges haven't been abused by a previous owner, they aren't pitted or cracked or anything, but they look like they were cut by a caveman! I guess this is a factory condition. The bass drum, like I said, was added to the kit. (I'd love to know what happened to the original bass drum!) It has the 4 spurs on it and was rewrapped at precision drum in NY by the previous owner. For this reason, the color of the bass drum does not match the rest of the kit exactly. The pattern of the BDP is identical but the wrap on the bass has more blue in it (which I guess is characteristic of Precision's BDP) whereas the rest of the kit has a grey charcoal apperance to the BDP. The bass drum also has a black and silver niles badge but the serial number is much lower (in the 100,000s). It has the classic 3-ply shell with the maple reinforcement hoops stamped with a P. It's pretty unique in that it has no tom tom mount. The shell was never drilled for a tom mount. No holes, no plugs. I would like to know more about this because leaving the bass drum undrilled with no tom mount didn't come into vogue until the 90's when tom toms were suspended from stands seperate from the bass drum. The bass drum has needed a little more TLC--new hoops because the previous ones were out of round, I have had to glue the reinforcement hoops in places were they are starting to de-lam from the shell. There are some minor cracks in the shell itself near the reinforcement hoops.

All said and done, I have a 1970's BDP slinerland kit, but it's not the classic shells and not a complete factory matched kit. How desirable are the slingerland 5-ply drums, and how badly does having a unmatched bass drum affect the value or desirability of the kit? Ultimately, it would be great to find a matching 5-ply BDP kick to complete the kit. I think that if I get the bearing edges cleaned up that it could be a really great kit. The other problem I have is that this is my rock kit, so I need a kick that is solid. Unfortunately, the 3-ply shell on the bass drum makes for a pretty light drum, plus with it's dimensions (tall and slender) and no tom tom mount to weigh it down it's pretty squirly. I've got the new hoops coming soon, and I hope that will improve it's overall sound and tunability, but Im a little concerned about it's ability to really perform for what I want it to do. I know Buddy Rich used this kind of kick and he really laid into it. But that's another reason that having the 5-ply bass would really help--those shells are THICK! and Heavy and it seems like it would be a much more suitable rock bass drum.