Hi all,
Here is another one all cleaned up and ready to add to the collection. I got this drum from my good friend, fellow collector and vintage drum historian Harry Cangany. This came out of Harry's personal collection from his original Drum Center of Indianapolis store. I have included some of Harry's comments as he knows the inner workings of this drum better than I do.
1930 LEEDY 5x14 BLACK ONYX/GREEN PEARL PROFESSIONAL MODEL
The Shell:
Let's all think "Black Panther over Mod Orange", just 45+ yrs. earlier. Leedy Black Onyx and Green Pearl were both introduced in 1930. The shell looks to be 3-ply and different (thinner) than the Leedy shells that I have seen before. You can clearly see where the original Black Onyx has been recovered in Green Pearl. I'll let Harry Cangany take it from here: "Leedy advertised in their catalogs that one could send a Leedy snare to the factory for upgrades. I have a 4 hole Indianapolis Sparkling Gold Professional that was upgraded to a four hole strainer and an Elkhart badge. They did some phenomenal work in hiding holes. Ryan and I inspected the green pearl snare with the heads off and saw the black onyx. It would not have left the factory that way unless it was a later upgrade. It would have been faster for Leedy to cover the onyx than to remove it and sand the shell and start over. I think the onyx shows because it was important for the head to fit properly that the green could not go all the way up." Thanks Harry. I noticed that the seam on this shell is in the panel left of the strainer as compared to the panel left of the butt plate on my other Leedys of the same era. I ran my finger around the entire shell and the only seam that I could see and feel is where I just mentioned so it looks like the original Black Onyx seam was in the same place as the later Green Pearl. I don't think that the Green Pearl would come off as easy as the Black Panther wrap would so I'm glad that I already have a few Black Onyx Leedys.
The Hardware:
Nothing out of the ordinary; nickel plating in very good condition, 4-screw lugs, slotted tension rods, Speedway strainer, normal butt plate and stick-chopper rims. The only thing I noticed that was different were the 6-32 screws that attach the butt plate to the shell. These are usually 4-40 screws but I decided to leave them as is as that may have been what the worker at Leedy used that day plus the butt plate is drilled for 6-32 screws. I also noticed that the top rim is missing the "Leedy, Indianapolis" stamp, cue Harry: "You know it might be that they used hoops with no city name as the move to Elkhart was on and that may also explain the shell. We don’t know when the company moved or how long they were shut down. We know there were Broadways with the Indianapolis hoop stamp and more with the Elkhart stamp. Seeing a recover on a plied shell makes me think it may have been done at the Indianapolis factory right before they shut down. Odds are a skeleton crew stayed in Indianapolis finishing little projects and shipping out orders as the foremen and other workers went to Elkhart to get it up and running. A repair, recover and/or assembly using stock shells and parts makes sense to me as the last work done in Indianapolis. It must have been a huge undertaking at the time to move all that equipment and tooling. There were no train tracks near Leedy Indianapolis...was this done completely by trucks? Including the multi-ton presses?" Thanks again Harry. Or, is it simply the wrong top rim?
Top and bottom Leedy Hard White calf heads and of-the-era James Snappi Wires rounded out this cleaning of a usually normal snare drum with a few quirks.
One final observation (as you can see in the photos) is the total sloppy-ass drilling for the Speedway strainer and butt plate causing the snare gates on the bottom rim to not align with the strainer and butt plate. Sloppy workmanship in my opinion.
Thanks again to Harry Cangany for his knowledge, insight and information.
Enjoy!
Mike Curotto
