HOLY TOLEDOS! LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE!

A while back, sometime in the year 2016, I decided to purchase a couple of abandoned drums off of Ebay.  The pair were a matching 12" tom and 16" floor tom in a wrap I decided to call "Plum Strata" because of their swirling, purplish appearance.  The drums needed quite a bit of work but I saw their potential and decided to undertake the job.  My previous write-up on this restoration project can be found HERE.

In the conclusion of that report I admitted the hopelessness of ever finding a snare and/or a kick to form a complete kit but as I always say: "You never know.  It could happen."

Well, strangely enough, it did happen, and not only did I find a matching snare, I also found a matching bass drum.  The snare drum was acquired some time ago and I don't even remember the details, but this past month I finally found the bass drum far away in a distant country called "Canada."  After paying a slightly unreasonable asking price and international shipping fees, I was able to bring this kit all together.  Let's have a look, shall we?

Isn't that beautiful?  I think it's safe to say that it is.  So, after bringing the snare and kick to this assemblage and seeing their burgundy tint, I am inclined to believe the proper name for the wrap is "Wine-Red Ripple Pearl."  That is the only wrap from this time period that it slightly resembles, though "WRRP" was an offering from Rogers, not Star, and was a red, pink and white swirled pearl finish, as opposed to this red and black swirl.  Looking through several old catalogs distributed by many different drum companies, I know the wrap is definitely not Red Agate Pearl, Red Onyx Pearl, Red Marine Pearl, Silky Red, Red Satin Pearl, Burgundy Pearl or Pink Strata Pearl.  Now that I've had time to think about it, I'm not sure what the official nomenclature is, so let's just call it "Wine Red Strata....Pearl."  But the point is, the finish is more burgundy colored than purple or plum.  The 12 and the 16 have just darkened due to age and improper storage techniques.  In daylight and arranged all together, the kit appears more wine-red than plum.

And as we can see from this shot from the front, I actually have a back-up snare drum in the same finish.  That snare is a "Zim-Gar," whereas the other is a "Toledo" which matches the kick drum so it was a better match than the former.  However some extra-picky purists would point to the bass drum and say, "Huh-uh, Mr. misplacedmtnman, that is not a match!  The kick has double-ended 'club date' style lugs whereas the tom and floor have two rows of single lugs!  So boo-hoo to you, you misplacedmtn poo!"

....to which I would reply: "Gee whiz.  Give a guy a break.  This is as close as I could get.  I searched for years, all the way to northern North America to track down pieces with this finish in order to bring this kit together, and you're going to get snobby about the lugs?  This is the thanks I get for all my hard work.  How rude."


COMING UP NEXT:

The misplacedmtnman will reveal ANOTHER instance when lightning struck twice....and describe it all in riveting detail!  You certainly won't want to miss it!  Or maybe you will.  I don't know.

So stay tuned.....if you're interested.