Absolutely, it could. Slingerland sent more than a few unusual finishes out the door. So, no worries. Best thing one could do is remove a few lugs and heads and look the thing over. Anything short of that is mere speculation ... which really gets us nowhere.

I must be color blind as I see no "cherry" in the color. The one pic that has any "cherry" hue is due to the guys red shirt. Look at the chrome in the tom pic and you see what I mean. Same thing happened to me in my snare pic. Anyway RogerSling is right, could be ,but without the order form we will never truly know. But even if it is grey agate pearl it is still a rare wrap.

And a nice looking kit!

Cheers,Ed

OK. I admit that I was wrong when I speculated that the light colored sections of the Onyx wrap were semi transparent. I was thinking of the Strata or Oyster type wraps that Rogers and other drum makers used. One fact that cannot be overlooked is that different batches of the same wrap (Onyx included) varied from each other in hue, intensity of the colors, profusion of pattern, directionality of patterns, etc. Adding drums to a set could result in drums in the set where every one of them perfectly matches each other, or the added drum(s) color slightly differs from the original drums, or the added drum(s) significantly differ from the original drums in the set. Think about matching up Blue Glass Glitter drums from Slingerland. How many different variations existed over the years? The changes could be very significant from one batch to the next batch---even with drums made on the same day. How about Slingerland Root Beer Sparkle or Rogers Purple Diamond Pearl? These were not catalog colors. I think that they were batches of Burgundy Sparkle and Black Diamond Pearl respectively that had tint issues. Have you ever tried matching "white" paint on your walls with touch up paint? Unless you have the mixing formula for the color, matching the old paint is a real crap shoot. Even the same formula of new paint or left over paint from the original job may not match up well to paint that has been on the walls for three years. All of this is to point out that I don't think that the wrap in question is unusual at all even though the drums are very attractive and desireable to many of us.

I just emailed the seller again, asking where he lives in southern California. If he lives reasonably close to me, I asked if I could come over and check out the drums and take pictures. I'll let you know what happens!

Just heard back from the seller. Here's his reply:

"Hi Mark, Im in Barstow. Yes you can take pictures if you would like to . I was intrigued as well and so I pulled a hoop to double check and yes the cherry hue goes all the way, even under the lugs. My grey agate snare is in San Jose with a good friend and I called and asked him to take a close look, he also pulled a hoop and a lug and there is absolutely no cherry color on that drum. Can you tell me about the debate in progress I'd love to hear about it. Or I guess I can just log on later when I get a chance (still working right now). Thanks Doug."

Well, Barstow is 90 miles from me, so I guess I won't be driving out there! Doug asked for the link to this thread. I sent it to him and hope he can check it out.