Hi,

More from my modern day snare drum collection.

2007 CRAVIOTTO DRUMS USA/AK DRUMS ITALY DIAMOND SERIES NICKEL over BRASS ENGRAVED /GOLD PLATED 5.5 x 14 #00/50, 6.5 x 14 #00/50 AND 4 x 14 (SPECIAL ORDER) #01/01

In 2007 Craviotto Drums USA collaborated with AK Drums Italy and together they produced the Diamond Series engraved nickel over brass shell snare drums. This was a very limited run of 50 5.5 x 14 and 50 6.5 x 14 shells. Both sizes sold out very fast but you see one here and there for sale on EBay or private sales between collectors and certain dealers. I first saw the sample shell at the 2007 Chicago Vintage Drum Show. My good friend Joe Kenney was the Craviotto sales rep at the time and he showed me the sample shell. I noticed that the diamonds in one of the panels was larger than the other diamonds so I came up with the idea to use the larger diamond for the CRAVIOTTO logo in the upper panel and the larger diamond right below, in the lower panel for CUROTTO to be added. I also asked if “CUROTTO” could be engraved on the bottom rim...I felt that it would be a great honor to have my name in the same panel as the great Johnny C. plus it adds a personal touch to the drums. Joe ran my ideas by Johnny and Johnny agreed and since the shells are a little different from the other shells he came up with the idea to number each shell #00/50 . I had one more idea. I asked Johnny if he would authorize a 4 x 14 version of the Diamond Series. Johnny graciously accepted my idea and commissioned AK Drums to build the only 4 x 14 Diamond Series shell, #01/01.

FINAL THOUGHTS...(KIND OF A TRIBUTE ALSO):

I was fortunate to be able to call Johnny Craviotto my good friend. I knew Johnny for over 20 years and I would see him at all of the NAMM Shows and Chicago Vintage Drum Shows. We ate many dinners together at Steve Maxwell’s annual dinner for all of the Craviotto Drums clients. Johnny had a great sense of humor and we would trade Genovese/Sicilian slang terms until we would both be in stiches. No one knew what we were talking about and the looks we got made it even funnier. His father was from the same Italian community as my father, Colma, CA.

We shared something “in common” in an amusing kind of way. Since our last names both end in “otto” I would constantly get people coming up to me at NAMM Shows and Chicago Shows to tell me “man I love your drums, you make great drums”. I would always answer “CRAVIotto is the builder, CURotto is the collector” and then I would point them in the direction of Johnny’s booth. Johnny always got a laugh from this.

Aside from any special orders that he approved Johnny also did me a great favor a while back. Some of the earlier Craviotto snare drums used a strainer that had developed a significant fail rate. I owned ten Craviotto snare drums at the time, when I asked Johnny about this his answer was “this is not ok, I’ll take care of you”. Johnny proceeded to send his assembler Eric to my drum studio where he swapped out not only the broken strainers but the remaining strainers that were not broken...at no cost to me!

All of my Craviotto snare drums are in my drum studio and are there to be played by me and my students.

Johnny was a good friend and I am proud to own his drums. Johnny’s legacy and his drums will live on in my life and as great heirloom pieces in the future.

Enjoy!

Mike Curotto