Look what I just found

I've said on this forum before that with a little love and decent heads any of these stencil kits can be set up to sound good. Some of these kits are over 40 yrs old and the "phillipine mahogany" (lauan-door wood) has dried out considerably. I find that this makes them ring nicely when fitted with good Remo or other high quality heads. I keep acquiring these kits without going out and looking for them. My percussionist gave me these Kingston badged root beer swirl drums. It's a 4 piece including snare with 22" bass. The wrap is in surprisingly good shape and cleaned up nice. the hardware needed some #0000 steel wool run across it a few times but shined up nicely as well. the kick hoops were wood! he found it in the trash on somebody's curb. I dig the cool wraps on these old kits. this one has re-rings that are maple as far as I can tell. the bearing edge is well preserved because of the reinforcement rings. dang. now I have to learn to play be-bop style set up! it's too cool looking to leave in my living room. have to play it out. that's kinda my rep with other drummers is I come up with these vintage kits that sound kick ass but I actually play them live.

That is a sweet score! Any pics? Made by Pearl 1967 or older.

friend gave me this Kingston (Japan) 4pc with matching snare in what they called Tiger Eye Swirl. they're mahogany with re-rings but the mahogany is a darker reddish color, maybe old growth trees they were made from. they sound great even with some used, re-cycled heads. still missing stick saver hoop and lugs on the 13" but found new ones online for cheap. all else good. I love these old kits 'cuz yes, they're like my first kit but sound way better. they wraps on these are still in good shape. a little Vaseline shines 'em up after a good cleaning. wipe on, wipe off, polish...

the snare is sweet! it's got a nice sharp crack to it. the whole kit is nice really. all I need is two repro stick saver hoops and 6 slingy copy lugs for the 13" tom and it will be 100% restored. I love the wood hoops on the 22" kick. these have to be early '60s cuz mid '60s they used steel hoops for kick. these drums actually had rain water in them when I got them. no, they didn't buckle or warp in the least! I dried them out with towels right away after takings heads off. free drum kits make me so damn* happy!

yah when we were kids growin' up in the '60s when everyone wanted to be a drummer we argued about which Japan kits were better, Maxwin or Maxitone, Majestic or Star, Norma or Audition. We didn't know most of those so called stencil kits were coming either from Pearl or Star/Tama/Hoshino. I was grateful to have mine and played the crap out of it until I finally sold it to buy wedding rings. What a mistake! lol...I don't have that wife anymore either.

Here's a Kingston badged snare made of that low grade mahogany with re-enforcement rings top and bottom bearing edges. I must say it sounds incredible for what it is. Fresh Remos make all the difference. I love those unusual finishes the Japanese builders put on these. This is called either Tiger Eye Stripe or Root Beer Swirl. The throw off is this huge round chrome mechanism. It's still very smooth to operate. The hoops are stick saver knock offs but in good shape. I own Ludwig Supraphonic and Acrosonic but my Japan snares are good too and I use them for gigs often. Metal snares are louder when you need that like out door venues. Wood snares are warm and not so loud for smaller indoor venues. But both sound great miked and eq'ed.