Hi all,
This one is at the top of the list in the WTF? files! Since this is a family show here we'll call WTF the "Where's That From?" files, but you all know what I mean. It was late (2:00 am) and just before retiring to bed I decided to peruse my eBay bookmarks one last time. I went through the Vintage, Leedy, Ludwig, WFL sections and there in the Slingerland section was this...
1932-34 Slingerland 8x14 (18 lug) walnut DuAll Model
Where do we begin? Let's start with a little provenance. This drum came from eBay via a music store in Southern Ca. that was selling this drum and other pieces for the son of the original owner who had long since passed away. His father was a Vaudeville drummer in the 1920s and later on in the 1940s had a big band that played the ballroom circuit in the San Bernardino (Ca) area.
The 8x14 shell is walnut and very clean so all that was needed was some lemon oil to clean and polish the walnut...but...I think that this shell is a 3-ply shell which would be a first for me as far as DuAll shells go. Every DuAll that I own or have seen has a solid shell. Was Slingerland not able to steam bend an 8" solid shell? Check out the photo and see what you think. The hardware, ah...the hardware...18 lugs of pure weirdness. Our friend and fellow collector Harry Cangany saw this drum and emailed the following: "Mike: I saw that 18 lug DuAll last night and laughed in astonishment--some formerly valuable 10 lugger got in the hands of a mad man who drilled it for 8 more lugs.....let's look at the inside of the shell on that one!" So the questions are: 1. is this all original?... 2. is this an un-cataloged, one-off, special order? or... 3. "some formerly valuable 10 lugger got in the hands of a mad man who drilled it for 8 more lugs"? First off I looked inside the shell to see if there were any signs of a former "mad man" being there. I am happy to report (and mildly relieved) that the drilling for the 18 lugs looks all original and uniform. To confirm this further I lined up a 10 lug Artist Model and noticed that the 10 lugs on the Artist Model did not line up with any 10 of the lugs on this drum so more proof that this was an original factory drilling. The cloud badge is perfectly centered between two of the 18 lugs so this could not have happened if this drum had started out as a 10 lug drum. I took a look at the 10 lug Artist Model and imagined what another 8 lugs would look like but in order to even things out the shell would have had to be drilled for 20 lugs. Further proof are the 18 brass wood screws that are drilled into the top bearing edge that are perfectly aligned with every tube lug. Finally, you will notice that the snare gates on the bottom rim of this drum have a smaller opening, 1 3/8" and a 2" center to center hole spacing as compared to a 2" opening and 2 1/2" center to center on all of my 5x14 and 6.5x14 10 lug DuAlls. I see this as a factory modification in order to accommodate 18 lugs evenly across the rims. In conclusion, my vote is that this is an original factory-drilled shell. The tube lugs measure 5" end to end with a center to center hole spacing of 4.5". This is in comparison to a 6.5 x14 Slingerland shell that has tube lugs that are 4" end to end and 3.5" center to center. This drum has all original nickel plated hardware that is in great shape but really dirty and needed a thorough cleaning and polishing. Everything cleaned and polished up nicely. The DuAll mechanism works fine and the snare wires are intact. An interesting modification that I noticed was that the extension lever had to be bent/angled in order to clear the extra long tube lug. There was no batter head (tell me something that I already didn't know) but I went to my stash and found a nice batter head that fit perfectly onto the Tone Flange. There was no bottom (slunk) head either but that was an easy fix. There you have it, right out of the WTF? files. Now all that I need are 4x14, 5x14 and 6.5x14 18 lug DuAlls to make this a full set...(enter Forum readers falling to the floor in hysterics).
Enjoy!
Mike Curotto
