Well I just got back from Memphis and picked up a three piece Slingerland Radio King in faded/yellowed white marine pearl. I bought the kit a month ago from a Memphis drum store and opted to pick them up because my family had a trip planned last week. The wrap is rough (and the seller made me aware of that) with some splits in the wrap, fading, yellowing . . . basically what one would expect from a 64 year old drum set that was played. I finally got to do the close up examination on them this morning and had a few questions/concerns that I thought may be answered from the fine folks of VDF.
-The floor tom rims do not say "Radio King." I always thought that at least the top rim would have the logo. The rack tom has it, but neither of the floor tom rims do.
-The floor tom seems to be in round by the naked eye. The head, although a bit difficult to remove, came off pretty easy. However, I have never had a more difficult tuning a drum. The bearing edges seem okay, but I cannot get a good tone out of it. It's like it is broken but yet I look at it and it looks great.
-The rack tom does not have the same amount of fading and yellowing as the other two pieces.
-On the rack tom, the very bottom of lug holes can be seen on under a couple of the lugs (see pic).
-The tension rods on the toms seem to be a bit of a hodge podge. Some newer, some older and some different lengths.
-The wrap has been glued down in a few places so it must have been coming free.
When I put this all together, I am beginning to question my purchase. I paid $850 for the kit which is by no means a lot for a Radio King. But I am starting to doubt what the kit really is. The store I bought it from claim that they took this kit in as a trade in and passed on very little information other than that it was a Radio King and that the kit had some cosmetic issues, thus the lower price. The insides look correct, but the different rims, tension rods, wrap fade, tuning issues, weird partial holes under lugs and probably some other stuff I have missed, make me wonder if I just purchased someone else's cast offs, orphans or whatever. What do you guys think?
