THE WHITE MARINE PEARL U.S. MERCURY KIT

Here is another entry into my "M.I.J. Museum" that I only recently completed.  The kit began with the purchase of the snare and 12" tom, both of which have badges bearing the name "U.S. Mercury" - which, wow, sounds totally American, does it not?  I mean, putting the initials "U.S." in front of the title of a NASA space project just screams red, white and blue!

A-MARE-RICK-UH.....HECK, YEAH!

But no, not at all.  Totally Japanese.  Completely manufactured and assembled in Japan.  Branding their import drums with very American-sounding names was just a marketing tactic they employed.  But just because they were inexpensive didn't mean they were lousy.  I think they still hold up today.

Not long after I had cleaned up the snare and tom, I came across a similar bass drum that I added to this set.  It wasn't an exact match because the mount had a knurled post and my tom had a clip bracket, but the wrap blended in well so I included it, setting the tom on a snare stand and ignoring the mount.  This kick did not have a badge, so I could brand it anything I wanted.  I was able to find this cool logo to apply to the front head and boom, now it's a U.S. Mercury.  Easy-peasy.

But then I ran into an issue with the spurs.  The straight ones that came with the drum stuck way out and looked a little retarded, like they didn't belong to this drum.  This was clearly a case of "improper replacement parts."  After experimenting with different spur lengths and styles, I finally figured out that what I needed were "Gull Wing" spurs (and you can do your own Google search to see what I mean).  After purchasing and trying several different brands, I settled on this particular pair which I actually had to forcefully bend with a vise to obtain the proper angle.  Originally they bent inwards a little too much, so I had to pry them outwards to make them work (and look right).

Then a year or so went by and I forgot all about this set, until one day I decided to rescue a badly-treated and severely-neglected 14-inch floor tom, just out of the goodness of my heart.  In all honesty I was actually looking for a drum that I could re-wrap with a cool new skin as a "practice project" and chose this beat-up drum because it was only fifty bucks.  I wouldn't be upset if I messed it up.

After I restored it, however, I realized there was still some life in it and HEY!  This would go with these other WMP drums and form a complete kit!  That's how this little FT became a part of this arrangement.

Now that I have told the origin story of this drum set, I will close by reporting that heck yes, this kit still sounds good and I enjoyed playing it, which I had never done until now.  It just goes to show me that you can't beat these old vintage kits.  You can beat ON them, but you can't beat 'em as far as sound and appearance go.  That's just my opinion.