I don't have an Beverly questions myself but I wanted to say "Welcome" and thank you for becoming a member and offering your knowledge to the forum!

If you have catalogs that could be scanned and added to our data base that would be most appreciated too.

Thanks again, and enjoy the place!

Thanks for your welcome J!M. Don't have any old catalogues these days. Gave all thos that I had kept away at a drum show in Nuneaton.

Regards, John

John, welcome to the club. Very nice of you to share your experience with us. I am sorta new (about 2 years into this) to the vintage drum world and have a question that I should know but, here its.

You say you ran the Beverly line, were you a line superintendent or what exactly did you do for the company?

Here is my real question, stupid but, did Beverly make drums and cymbals? I have seen a few Beverly cymbals but never any drums allthough I have heard guys talking about them. So I wondered if the drums and cymbals were made by the same company in the same plant.

There, that should get something going.

Jeff C

Hi, Jccabinets,

I was the managing director of Beverley (Chief Executive Officer) towards the end. I started in 1961 as sales manager and had a big hand in redesigning the original Beverley drums that were made in the town of Beverley in north east England. The company was bought by the owner of Premier and he engaged me to run the drum business, reporting to him on a monthly basis. The whole history of this is on the web, but I don't have a link to take you there. But it's very well worth reading as you will find everything about the manufacture of Beverley etc etc.

I have just remembered.....I wasn't the CEO, I was the Sales Director. Albert Della Porta, who owned Premier, was the CEO of Beverley and Beverley paid Premier for making our drums and cymbals

Welcome! Great to have someone of your experience on the forum.

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/beverley_history.html

It would be really interesting to hear the nuts and bolts challenges of running a drum company at the height of a music revolution.

How did you get in the business to begin with??

Hi John,

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for your offer to share your knowledge. I just purchased a Cosmic 21 from an English friend. The drum belonged to Jock Cummings, who evidently was a band leader and BBC session player back in the day. My friend said the drum may be brass, as it feels heavier than aluminum (I won't actually get the drum for a few weeks). Do you remember if any of the Cosmic 21s were brass? The drum is pictured below.

Thanks so much.

Best.

Stephen

Do I remember the cosmic 21.....I designed the darn thing! And then took it over to the States and showed it to Bill Ludwig. He didn't make any remarks about it being a copy of the Ludwig 400, which it was.

The Ludwig model was made of aluminium. The Cosmic 21 was made of brass and and, of course, then chrome plated. Jock Cummins (a friend of mine at the time) used the 21 for years and used to tell everybody about it. At that time it cost $30 in the States.

Cheers,

John

If you look at the link in Jim's post you will getthe whole history of Beverley Drum Co and my involvement with it. The reason I joined Beverley was because Albert Della-Porta who owned the company wanted an experienced drummer to take over the business. I was the only drummer working for Beverley and Premier also only had one drummer in the organisation.