Guys!

Slingerland is completely OOB.. ( out of business ) .. and has been for a while now. Why Gibson keeps that page up I have no idea. Gibson had been shopping the Slingerland name around as being FOR SALE, but there have been no takers. The last drums that were built/sold came out of Conway, AK... and that has been shut down for at LEAST 2 years now. There are no plans to revive the brand.

Tommyp

That's too bad, as a Slingerland player and fan I am always hoping that the brand will one day make a comeback and be restored to their former glory.

Agreed!... know what though... Gibson NEVER really got behind the marketing on these.. and .. when they were offered, the price was way TOO HIGH. Problem was, Gibson thought all they needed was the name Slingerland and the buyers would come flocking. Wasn't so unfortunately. The drums were built very well!, but most the hardware used at the time was imported "look alikes", and that didn't help either. Some of the chrome was so-so. I actually did consulting work with the Slingerland drum division of Gibson/Tobias back in 2004. My payment was a full set at COST of my choice, thus... I have a CUSTOM Buddy Rich 80N built with NOS 70's era hardware mounted that they had left over. It's kinda a "one of a kind" in that regard, plus... complete hardware package including:

2 BR floor cymbal stands/small base

2 "L" arms

BR "Rocket" snare drum stand

Dynamo HH

Set-o-Matic

I went with what I felt were more managable/giggable sizes, instead of the actual BR sizes which I already had with the '65 Rogers BR Celebrity's. So...

14X22

8X12

14X14

16X16

I had the drums wrapped in the GK/WMP which was pure white as the BR/WMP offered at the time had a blue tint to it. The blue tinted WMP was nice for sure... but not what Buddy had originally. I'll attach a couple pics of the drums.

Tommyp

Very sensible sizing. That's my Stage Band set-up, minus the 16 floor. Lovely set!

Tommy, that is a great story and the kit is beautiful!

X's 2. flowers2 Those are sweet for sure. Back when I first was looking for a kit I spoke with a gentleman who had a couple of those kits. I think both were still NOS in the boxes. One might have been setup as display but never played. He had quite the collection of older Slingerland's too. Just the kind of stuff I'd be after if money were no object. :) But his BR's in WMP had that blue tint to them. Almost looked like light blue marine pearl. I still have some pics he sent me. But can not post them sorry. I need to respect his privacy.

My current kit is a set of 90's era Studio Kings (Baco era) 10,12,14,16, 16x22 & 5 x 14, in the green satin finish and they are some of the nicest sounding drums I have ever played. I think that in the right hands someone could really make a good run at bringing the Slingerland brand back since Gibson doesn't give them the attention they deserve.

Hear, hear! I'd love to see them gracing the drum floor of music stores again...at a reasonable price - as Tommyp alluded to.

Lynn

Not to NOT take anyone's word on this, but I visited the facebook page (still active) and then the linked website (also still active), so I called the 800 number... and the CS rep I talked to said they haven't produced Slingerland drums for at least 5 years and he knew of no plans for Gibson to reintroduce them...

Bill