At the time, if you were ordering a drum set from the catalog, the catalog sets could be considered as a starting point and you could specify whatever sort of build you wanted. A buyer that knew he would never use the cymbal mount(s) could ask for them to be left off and save a buck or two in the process. While a lot of people, and dealers (buying drums to sit on the sales floor) probably did order the sets as pictured, many buyers, particularly more experienced drummers, opted to get their sets made up just as they wanted them to be.

Additionally, some of the bigger drum shops would sometimes order drums with no mounting hardware installed (virgin) giving them the option of installing whatever the customer wanted wherever he wanted. This might result in configurations that were far off from anything shown in the catalogs and sometimes resulted in new drum sets wearing a completely different brand of hardware (often Rogers swivomatic stuff) but with no extra holes as this hardware was original to those drums.

I wouldn't sweat it too much, I doubt the catalog police will come down too hard on a missing cymbal mount, they have bigger fish to fry ;)

You never can speculate correctly about what nits the catalog-correct retentives will pick. You can be absolutely certain that your drum set looks exactly like the drum set pictured on page 37 of the 1964 catalog. Yours is even the same color, and has original-looking heads all around. However[SIZE="4"][/SIZE], there are two replacement tension rods on the resonant side of the floor tom, and several of the lug mounting screws on the bass drum have Phillips heads rather than slot heads. Those transgressions will cause the judges to issue you less than a perfect score......They'll also want to gig you a couple hundred dollars if they offer to buy the drums. Sarcastic? Yes. Snarky? Yes. Accurate? You bet your bippy.

Well thats good news, I was fearing something worse, like a mixed kit (the Modern Jazz Outfit 20" doesnt have a cymbal mount pictured in the catalog). Functionally I'd actually prefer to not have the cymbal mount, so not bummed about that at all.

I'm not so sure what would be so bad about a "mixed" set. All drum sets are mixtures, just that some were mixed at the factory, some were mixed at music stores, and others were mixed later by drummers. All 20" Slingerland bass drums were the same but they might get a different mix of hardware depending on how they were ordered. A silver sparkle 20" shell sitting at the factory could have ended up within either catalog set depending on what the worker needed to put together that day to fill an order.

What I mean is there is no such thing as a "Krupa Deluxe" or a "Modern Jazz" model bass drum. They were all the same drums but may have different accoutrements installed as needed for various outfit configurations...which could be further changed to suit the whims of a particular buyer.

Now, if you want to get dizzy from the "outfit" names that use the same size bass drums with differently placed mounts for tom(s), snare drum, cymbal arms, and extra mounts for more of the same or other stuff, talk to a Rogers Drums catalog savant. It can make your head spin.

Regardless, it sounds like you got a pretty cool drum set. It'll sound good and be fun to play. Enjoy your kit! Congratulations.

I agree. Play those Slingies, and find out how great they are.

Thanks guys, I'll get around to playing them, once I put them back together. I stripped all the hardware off to give a thorough cleaning. I'll post some pics when its in a more impressive state.

Heres another question, I'm sure this has been adressed before, but I see some people repaint their vintage bass drum hoops. These hoops are pretty dinged up, I was considering repainting with a black lacquer spray, but I'm also conscious of how that could possibly adversely affect the "collector" value... Is there a vintage drum ethic as far as repainting goes? To paint or not to paint?

It runs the full course from the policing story, that leedybdp writes about above, all the way to idiots like me who say, "If they look lousy fix them so they'll look nice." I might acknowledge an exception for some piece of vintage gear that is highly unusual and/or very historical. Example: You own Joe Morello's silver sparkle Ludwig kit from 1964. In that case, I'd leave it as is.

Fact is, doing or not doing it on a mid-sixties Slingerland 20,13,16 kit should not affect the final value one way or the other. Doing a good job on them is the main thing and then acknowledge that when you sell them.