I'm wondering how he dates the kit. Archangel....can you verify that it is 1968?

Awesome drums - Gotta love the wrap!!

Looking at the eBay kit, the photo of the interior of the tom (?), looks a lot like maple to me. I'm not a wood expert, but I've had my hands on more maple than the average guy (furniture maker for about 5 years).

I agree. It appears to be maple. That would be a reasonable wood choice for drums made in Japan, due to the fact that maple trees are common there. The shells look like they are pretty nice.

Wow, that "Golden Dragon" finish is really cool. I wish I had unlimited space for such things, but I must resign myself to admire them from here. :(

Snap!! I have been looking for a matching Snare for years I have a Green Snare with the same pattern and would like to find a Yellow one to match my Kit

Excuse me,may i but in for a moment...I could have an early 70,s bowing ball finish [Ringoish] for a good price.Size;22,13,16 in good nick...Are these maple shells??..thx for letting me but inflower

I have the full set, picked it up from a guy from Latvia, the only thing missing is a bass lug plate, does any one have one?

It is very rare, I may need to have a custom piece made.

hi, it´s my first post.i have this yamaha drum kit.serial number into snare drum 2179.bass drum 20, 12 tom tom, 14 floor tom tom, 14 snare drum....any information...please.?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]These are all very early Yamahas. The closest attribution to a date which folks here have come up with is '68-'72-ish.

I would agree with that.

The way to determine whether it's decent wood and not Luan is quite simple...if the grain on the interior of the shell runs vertical...it's probably luan, like old Pearls. But if it looks like birch or maple and runs horizontal..it probably...is.

Japanese companies didn't start re-orienting the grain on their Luan shells until the late '70's-early '80's.

Incidentally, gotta remark on that wrap...it's like a diagonal-onyx pattern. But the cool thing about it is...it's not that Yamaha just took a regular onyx pattern and appled the wraps diagonally (Premier did that with their ripples for a while...they took their horizontal ripples but applied them to the drum...skewed.. so the pattern ran diagonal). This wrap was actually floated and patterned diagonally before it was sliced/cut.

That's pretty dang wild, dude....Mind Blowi

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I just picked up a 20,12,14 in oyster pearl and i was told they are 5 ply birch shells with the grey painted interiors...no??..Mine have the rail mount.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Post some pics including of the drum interiors. It would be interesting to see if they painted birch shells. Usually grey paint means luan shells...but this was Yamaha, not Pearl, so maybe they did use birch and painted 'em. Pics will help determine...[/COLOR]