I buy to have it all. It works. I spend more. But in the long run, I have spent less. You take something messed up, and start fixing things, eventually you have spent about the same. Take a mid 60s Rogers 20-12-16 with matching Powertone.. Blue Sparkle. 1000-1400. Drums are in very good to excellent condition. Hoops are right, rods are right. Hardware is right. You get the cymbal arm with the tilter, you get the tom arm. You got 1400 in it with heads.

Ok, you buy orphans...and have to keep your orphans relatively close together in era so that the shell construction agrees between them. You land a 12 for a hundred, pay 250 for a floor with chewed up legs, another 100 for a bass drum with extra holes and messed up wrap. So, lets wrap it. Theres another 250.00 onto the 450 already spent. Now I need three hoops, and some rods, another hundred bucks. And heads. Another 200. See...its not hard to get up there. We are at 900 on a 500.00 set and still don't have a snare drum. But they do sound good. And now we want a matching snare drum. 400 bucks. Would have been better to buy the good ones at the start. Oh, forgot about the chewed up legs, that's another hundred bucks.

Just the way I see it. I buy good drums. I have been down the fixer upper road. My house is more fixer than upper. Done that with drums too. Ive decided to skip that street from now on. Buy for the sound, appearance, originality, and value. In the long run, you will have all of those things in hand if you decide to sell. With a fixer upper, all you have to sell is sound. As for all of that stuff sunk into the fixer upper, in a buyers eyes, it doesn't matter. He isn't buying your nostalgia.

Originality comes into mainly the collecting factor for me. Most of my drums I buy to play, and to bring out. So I'm not 100% on every little part being factory. But it is nice when you have a vintage drum that hasn't been touched. Value again isn't much to me since a lot of drums have a deeper sentimental value than actual monetary value. I'm mostly concerned with look and sound. I don't mind having different colors, but I like my sets to look good. They don't have to be shiny brand new, but I like them clean, no serious damage ( couple dings I expect ). And as long as they have a sound that I can and will use in my ventures that is the most important part. All my kits have a time and a place. I've tried using a kit that works great for my pop / rock band for my thrash / groove metal band and it just didn't work. Not that it sounded bad, but the toms didn't have the right voice, the drums were bigger than the typical kit I use for metal, and it just didn't fit. Square peg,round hole scenario.

It;s sound first to me though I often get caught up in the hype thing to an extent. That's why I have a Camco kit but don't play it very often. Not that they're bad. In the end my trusty boring white wrap Slingerlands are my favorites.

I doubt I would ever buy anything other than the Big 5 no matter how good they were sound-wise.

All of the above it is a pedect balance I like having that old great looking and sounding kit

The sound.

I agree with Ploughman, been collecting for a long time and learned many lessons. I have refined my collection to top line stuff. It sounds good, looks good, has few flaws, is all or mostly all original, and if I have to sell it, it's marketable.

Respectfully, I have fixed, recovered, bought parts for, sanded, stripped, refinished, polished, tuned, and sold my share or vintage drums. I am enjoying what I now have and adding as I go.

Maybe one day the market comes back, preferably right as I retire!;)

I agree!!

Cheers

Ahh, the ultimate drum question! As for me, it's all about the sound. I really don't care who made the drums, if they are pretty or rare, all that matters if they look cool and have that mojo, then that's all I need.

Being a recovering drum collector, I've been down that road and have fallen to the dark side of drums. If you don't give your drums a good bashing, they are useless. Let us not forget, they are a musical instrument, not stamps or coins. :2Cents:

I'm with The Ploughman on this! I've gone the refurb route more times than I care to admit...and each time, while fun, costs me much more than finding the same kit in already nice condition. Still, when I was younger, I didn't mind making a project of it, spending lots of hours cleaning, polishing, etc, and even more $$$ on missing parts! Now, I look for nicer kits that only need polishing and possibly only a few missing parts.

-Mark