Hi all,
Here's the latest to enter into the Curotto Collection. This drum is the first of 5 snare drums that I purchased at the 2010 Chicago Show. A special thanks goes to Steve Maxwell for shipping them back to me from Chicago and making my life very easy.
1922-24 Leedy 5x14 gold plated/fancy engraved Multi-Model
I love gold plated snare drums from the 1920s! The fancy engraving pattern on this Multi-Model is one that I have never seen before so maybe this drum was a one-off/special order. Master-engraver John Aldridge concurs that he has never seen this engraving pattern either so this pattern is now in his engraving photo archives.
This drum came to me with all original parts (except top and bottom heads) and in good but dirty condition. Ah, the marvel of lemon oil! The shell was very dusty and faded so I hit the shell with some lemon oil and the gold plating brightened up like a champ and the fancy engraving now pops out like it should. The hardware was another story though. The Multi-Model rims, being steel, were rusty in a lot of places so I cleaned the rust as best as I could and shot the rims with some clear lacquer. There is not much more that you can do here aside from a complete stripping, re-plating and re-lacquering. You would think that Leedy would have done a better job of under plating the steel rims before the gold plating was applied to the rims. The 2-hole lugs, Utility strainer, butt plate and heater plate were in a little better shape but I clear coated them also. You have to look closely but you can see the Multi-Model Leedy Indianapolis stamp on the top rim, you can clearly see Leedy Drum Co Pat. Dec. '12 on the Utility strainer. I had a pair of original Leedy Hardwhite heads so I put those on the drum as a finishing touch. So here I present to you another cool, old snare drum brought back to life.
Enjoy.
Mike Curotto
Attached thumbnail(s)
