was wondering if anyone has had any personal experience dealing with a company named vintage drum center (ned ingberman). i contacted them to see if they might be interested in purchasing the black beauty.

You should post this in the For Sale section of the Forum to see if any members would be interested...

should of done that first...

I would avoid Ned he will lowball you. I mentioned you should post this in our For sale section on my first post about your drum.

Ned is great, but he can only buy wholesale. You'll get your best price here or eBay, and this place doesn't charge fees!

I love stories like this.Cleaning out a house!!! Fan-freakin-tastic!! I remember reading a story last year, I think it was in MD, not sure,about a guy who found one in an attic in a house he had just moved into. I would get as much exposure as you can and put it on eBay. Let everyone here and on DFO know it's going up for auction. You'll get a ton of cash and it will go to a collector. Start taking your son "window shopping" for a new set of drums and he'll soon forget about messin with this one. If you really want to keep it as an investment, don't alter it an any way. There are drums that you play and there are drums that you put in there own special room and you just look at and drool a little and know you have an amazing piece of history. I think you know which one you have. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Rich.

Tommy, How far south of Chicago are you?

I have been watching Purdie's thread regarding purchasing this drum but just now found this thread. Amazing find.

I cannot add much to the discussion regarding the drum as drums prior to the mid 50's - early 60's are above my pay grade. What I can offer as professional advice is this:

Odds are that the insulation on the electrical wiring is asbestos. This was extremely common at the time. All the theatrical lighting fixtures of the time (about which I am an expert) used individual wires coming out of the lamp socket and they all had asbestos insulation on those leads prior to the introduction of neoprene jackets and fiberglass insulation sleeves. Therefore, you should observe at least some moderate care when dealing with that. Also, it is very possible that there is enough abrasion where the leads egress the shell to have opened the insulation to the point where the wires are shorted to the shell. If that happens to be the case, the shell/wire combination will arc when plugged in which will not only add a nice carbon stain on the shell but potentially do a minor bit of welding between the shell and wire. Just a head's up.

Congrats on a very amazing find! I hope the deal works out with Purdie.

Another thought on the electrical. If the insulation is asbestos then I would suggest removing the wiring simply from a safety standpoint, but let the buyer do that. Be very careful as that porcelain socket will be pretty fragile at this point. To replace the wiring, you can use standard braided 16 or 18 gauge wire and then purchase a length of narrow white fiberglass sleeving for the individual wires. This will work better, be much safer from both an environmental and electrical standpoint and will look a lot like it originally looked.

> but let the buyer do that.

It's number one on my agenda! Thanks for the post! Very helpful reminder!!!

John