"GEE...MY...OLD...LaSALLE LOOKS GREAT..."

This is the story of how a random, unwanted snare drum found new life and a home within the Percussion Fortress.  This is a 1970's Japanese "Pearl Stencil" with standard "Diamond" lugs and a badge bearing the name "LaSalle."  I found this dusty drum on Ebay being offered by a "garage sale"-type seller with auctions for everything from cookbooks to Christmas ornaments.  Shoes, shirts and shaving supplies.  Pocketbooks, glassware, coffee cups and collectibles.  You get the idea.  They had a plethora of assorted household items for sale.

They were asking $21.00 for this snare drum, plus $8.40 for shipping (which is reasonable), so I promptly proceeded to peruse their posting.  As is typical with auctions offered by non-drummers who are unfamiliar with the vintage percussion instrument they have casually put up for sale, the issues with this drum had to be determined by the pictures and translated from the "layman's" description written by the seller.  For example, this photo on the left was presented with the disclaimer: "Missing a bar on one side," along with another that revealed a sizable hole in the bottom drum head.  So right off the bat I knew I was going to have a tension rod/swivel nut situation as well as a complete head replacement requirement.

I also noticed in the "busted head" photograph (shown here on the right) that the interior Tone Control Assembly was twisted sideways and in no possible way could be functioning correctly.  That was going to have to be dealt with in order to return this drum to its proper state.  But these issues are all common and very minor, easily rectified with little cost and effort.

Here is what you want to watch out for: You find an awesome, vintage 14" floor tom for a dirt cheap price, free shipping.  Heck yeah!  You get all excited and are eager to snag this rare deal before someone else discovers it and beats you to it.  You are about to jump on that "Buy It Now" button when you suddenly have a moment of clarity and realize, I better take a minute or two and have a quick look at ALL the photos provided.  That's when, way down the line of amateur, blurry, cell-phone photographs you find one of the back side of the drum and it looks like this:

Whoa!  Dude!  Yikes!  Hold the phone!  Suddenly that dirt cheap price doesn't seem dirt cheap enough, not even if you were only buying this drum for spare parts.  Head replacement?  No problem.  Wrap replacement?  Big problem!  You better have some funds and skills before you venture down that path, my friend.

But I digress.  Back to my vintage LaSalle.  I completely disassembled it, fixed the T.C. Assembly, replaced the missing swivel nut and t-rod, thoroughly cleaned and polished everything and this is how it looks now:

All that Tone Control Assembly needed was a proper mounting screw, but I also added a couple of spacers, one metal and one neoprene, between the shell and the knob as can be seen here:

This I also did with the knob on the Snare Strainer Assembly because it looks good and improves the functionality of the mechanisms.

So that is the story of how another old, twenty-dollar snare drum became part of my collection.  Now I will continue on to the next one.....