Hi,

Another snare drum comes into the collection via the fertile waters of EBay. Say what you want about EBay but I have found many rare and extremely rare snare drums from this site.

1930 LEEDY 5 x 14 RAINBOW PEARL BROADWAY PARALLEL MODEL No. 2416 (First Generation)

The SHELL:

Leedy Rainbow Pearl was only offered in 1930. The Rainbow Pearl wrap was in very good shape and cleaned up nicely. This wrap has a “glue grid” backing on it as you will see in the photos. Surprisingly there were very little cracks in the finish which is pretty rare for this finish. The finish on this shell is similar to a 1930s run of Ludwig & Ludwig Peacock Pearl (see photo) which makes sense as Leedy and L & L were both purchased by C. G. Conn, Ltd. in 1929 and these snare drums were literally built across the way from each other. I am of the opinion that these finishes are the same but it makes sense product branding-wise that they kept Leedy’s “Rainbow Pearl” separate from L & L’s “Peacock Pearl”. One can only imagine what all of those blues, greens, reds, yellows, purples etc. would look like in person. The solid mahogany shell interior is very clean and the Leedy (pre-badge) wood grommet is intact.

The HARDWARE:

All of the nickel plated hardware cleaned up and polished up nicely. The Broadway Parallel mechanism on this drum is Leedy’s first generation Parallel Mechanism; everything is complete and works perfectly. The tension rods were missing as were the top and bottom rims. Thanks goes to my good friend Mark Cooper, [email]coopersvintagedrums@verizon.net[/email] who supplied me with the correct rims and tension rods.

Of-the-era top and bottom calf heads and wire wound snares rounded out this easy restoration.

Some Final Thoughts:

It looks like Leedy’s Rainbow Pearl was only around for one year (1930) which makes this one of Leedy’s rarest finishes. I have seen 5-6 Leedy Broadway Standard snare drums in Rainbow Pearl. This is the only Rainbow Pearl Broadway Parallel Model that I have ever seen or heard of. As always, I invite you to weigh-in with any comments or photos of your own Leedy Rainbow Pearl snare drums.

Enjoy!

Mike Curotto