Yes, definitely not a two piece, and I'm surprised someone said seamless. The earliest seamless shells were produced in the early 60s, AFAIK.

You might want to get someone to dip it,and get the LEAD PAINT off it.....

Ps..the butt plate is not Ludwig.not sure of it..Prem Maybe?

Well good job i didnt put it on the ebay. Turns out not a ludwig, in fact its just a lowly boosey and hawks brass shell. Still cant find a seam (if there is one then its far better done than anything we have today). So sadly a pretty worthless, albeit very nice sounding drum. So can anyone tell me about these guys? No other stuff on it other than the simple stamp: boosey & hawkes ltd manufacturers london.

all i can confirm is it seems chromed, the boosey & hawkes is stamped, it is brass, same with claws and tube lugs and single flange hoops. it came with calfskin heads. that is as much as i can say :/

That is an Ajax throwoff. The drum is likely an earlier version of this one----before they started using the diecast hoops on all drums.http://www.myspace.com/vintagedrums/photos/1212904 THis one is probably from the 30's -----possibly mid. 40's. There wasn't much in the way of design changes on British drums from the late 30's until a bit after the war. B&H used this throwoff for almost all of their basic drum lines until the end. You'll see it on the early lower Ajax , then later on it showed up on Pipper, Pipperette, Edgware, Stratford and Besson drums. They tended to put parallel strainers on the high end stuff.

so its not worth much nor a particularly good drum then? shame as you dont see beginner or intermediate level nickel over brass shells these days.... back in those days it must have been amazing to start off with amazing drums

The funny thing is, had this been a Ludwig drum; which it was deemed to be for a couple of pages but exactly the same as it is, there would have been all this furor over it.This is fantastic, this is valuable, this is unique. So, it is an Ajax and all of a sudden it isn't a very good drum? It's brass. made on the same shell basis as the better drums, just with more pedestrian fittings. Boosey & Hawkes weren't messing around. Unfortunately for them , they carried old world craftsmanship into almost everything they made and paid the price of pricing themselves out of business. Even their second rate drums had cast hoops, birch shells and sounded terrific.

so does anyone know anything else about boosey and hawkes other than they did beginner lines and turned into ajax later on? any ideas what this one is?

wait.... so the reason i love the sound is because these drums are top end shells and the only difference is cosmetic like amount of lugs and strainer.... that in todays comparison this is a top end drum? And i only meant its not good resale value, i doubt i would ever claw back a profit. I am definitely keeping it however. Any idea how they made the seam invisible or is it seamless? And so they made there drums so good even the low lines that they drove themselves out of business?

Boosey & Hawkes, was a fine musical instrument maker and a music publisher. At one time they either made or had made for them ,by other fine European makers, almost every musical instrument but they were mostly known for their brass instruments and their woodwinds, which they crafted in England. Percussion , at first was geared towards the orchestra but as bands became more popular they branched into that market with drumsets and a broader percussion line. Ajax was their brand, from at least the early 30's, for drums-----your drum is likely an Ajax , missing it's badge. Like most drum companies , though, they had student level drums too, which yours is one of but B&H built their student level drums around standard shells. This is likely the same shell the better drums used. Why , no seam? Probably, very artfully brazed and cleaned up. I've got a C.O.B. from the late 60's, that is the same. B&H were unwilling to lower their quality to meet the demands of the market.Couldn't really. They had a quality infrastructure, skilled artisans---you can't downgrade that. Crappy MIJ drums , coming from a fake subsidized economy couldn't be competed with , so they quit, got more into distribution and have all but faded away. The last I heard, they were only a publisher and were for sale.