[COLOR="Indigo"]Jonas:

Wonderful drums. From the badge picture, the shade of Sparkling Blue Pearl, the T-rod design and all the other features, your estimate of date is not bad - actually your drums were shipped from Niles in late 1969 to early 1970.

The weak chocolate milk colored stain on the interior was a standard Slingerland factory practice at the time your drums were made. And no - it was not intended to cover up poor shells. The shells on your drums are the same shells that Slingerland made earlier in the 1960s: 3-ply thin mahogany exterior under the Sparkling Blue pearl - thick poplar middle ply - and thin maple interior ply with solid maple reinforcing rings. I'm going to discuss more on shells in an upcoming Slingerland article.

Now of course these are your drums to do with as you see fit, but I would love to try to convince you not to recover them. Many drummers would love to have a Slingerland Sparkling Blue 3-ply kit with black & brass Niles badges - refinishing will not just drop their value by much more than half, but the historical originality so prized by vintage drummers will be lost forever. Unless the finish is totally trashed I always like to try to urge restoration, not refinishing. The holes can easily be plugged and matching finish patches placed. Sparkles are particularly amenable to such restoration. And with a little Novus plastic polish (#2, or perhaps #3 gently, followed by #2) you would be amazed at how great these drums will look.

Having said all that, they are your drums, and I know you will enjoy them regardless![/COLOR]

Thanks DrCJW for the quick and informative reply! :)

I'm of course very pleased to hear that you liked the kit and that the shells are of good quality, and I'll definately consider trying to save the blue sparkle.

It is in pretty bad shape though......but I'll see what I can do with a little help from a drumbuilder friend of mine!

I also really enjoyed your articles on Slingerland badges and serial numbers and look forward to one on Slingerland shells.

Speaking of that, I just bought a Slingerland 1958 22x12 bass drum shell in Duco finish with mahogany interior.

Would you happen to know the shell composition on this one?

[COLOR="Navy"]In 1958 a main line Slingerland kit bass at 12x22 with color lacquer finish would have also been 3-ply with solid maple reinforcing rings, but reverse the mahogany and maple plies. So thin mahogany inner, thick poplar middle, thin maple outer to take the duco lacquer.

Now there were other shell configurations, but let's save that for another time.[/COLOR]

I recently came across a set that the seller describes as a 5 ply shell. Do anyone know the shell composition of this kind of shell and what year this would date the kit?