Do You Wonder Where Your Old Drums Are?

Utopian Glints

Utopian Glints

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Like you goobs, I've owned a whole bunch of drums-- enough where if I could magically gather them all together I'd have a decent but very idiosyncratic drum shop on my hands.

Sometimes I'll wonder what ever happened to the drums I sold. A lot of them were really good. I don't lament the loss of any of them, really, but I think of these drums now and then:

I had a 10/12/14/20/6.5 Yamaha Maple Absolute, standard depth toms with vintage wood hoops
I had a 12/13/14/20 Sonor Phonic Rosewood I/O.
I had a 10/12/14/18 Gretsch square badge walnut gloss with a Tama mount
I had a 10/12/14/20 DW Collectors kit in Red Glass Glitter from 2001 that I sold to a kid who'd recently lost his dad.

And most painfully, I had a 12/14/16/18bd/22bd/5.5 Kep Ayotte wood hooped kit in Silver Sparkle-- that's "the one that got away." Why I sold that, I'll never know.

Do you have any kits that you still think about? I don't want them back, but if I found the person who still owns them, it'd make me happy.
 
I really don't care where my stuff ends up, but I will have to say that the a couple of guys who sold me some drums follow me on social media. I know where just about every kit I've sold is, one of which is overseas right now.
 
Someday I might start selling off drums but that hasn't happened yet, so no.
Just last night, though, I was thinking about the 80s mk IIc+ amp a friend gave up a long time ago, and how it's possible that amp could've had an interesting life.
 
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Interesting question. I personally don't think about where my old music gear shows up. But, I have donated a few items and every once in a while, the charity will send a card with a photo of the new owner holding or playing the instrument.
Every once in a while I will see something pop up for sale that I used to own. I rarely have regrets. I might think back fondly to certain things...but never to the point of wanting to buy it back.
 
I know a Milestone 14x7 snare drum I sold lives locally....
It’s companion...a 22x18 bass drum sits in a corner in a reh room in Vancouver....and is cracked and split.....wtf??? you say.
Yep the person, a good friend, who bought the bd, used it for touring in his quasi Celtic punk band in where the singer would constantly launch himself off said drum....so over time....crack... As well a lot of the other gear they used suffered the same fate....lol......
These were from a Milestone bd and snare with a collarlock rack system for roto’s. I still have the rack and roto’s!!!!!

Another kit....a ‘63 set of 20,13,16 Gretsch in blue satin flame was sold to a dear friends boy friend, who played stand up in a surf band. That kit and finish were perfect for the usage. We quasi agreed that he not resell the kit, but to give it to my friend.
A few years after I moved out of the city, she told me they had broken up and apparently he then sold the kit to someone..... She was a little pissed to say the least and I said c’est la poop...
Other than that I have gifted stuff to folks locally.
bt
 
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Just the two pictured I wish ai knew where they were .
I have seen a few of my other kits come up for sale over the years but not these two .
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There's a local recording studio that sometimes rents out the studio for parties and what not and I was there for one such party and I looked up on the shelf and there were my old Rogers! I knew they were mine because of the layout of the many mounts on the bass drum, some familiar blemishes, etc. I have no idea how they ended up in this studio as I sold them to an individual who said at least there for his own use.

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My first kit was a Ludwig Keystone era 5-piece (22, 12, 12, 16) in OBP. I loved having a kit, but hated the color - I was a young anti-Ringo snob. He wasn't nearly as cool as Tony Williams or Billy Cobham or Steve Gadd in my eyes. Sold the kit for $200, which is what my parents paid for it, to a friend of my moms. Little did I know how valuable that kit would probably become. Tried getting it back years ago with no luck.

Also, I really would love to get this Tempus Purple Sparkle snare back!! No idea who I sold it to though.
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Sold an early SSB black nitron 12, 13, 14, 18 at the Chicago show for $800 twenty five years ago. Pretty sure it was to a member here but can’t remember who now.

If you remember this, I’d love to see them again!!
 
I think we all wish that our old drum sets ended up with someone who really poured themselves into becoming a great drummer and used our old kit as the stepping stone to greater things.
We also worry the drums never got used, and were tossed into an attic or basement to be stored away until a yard sale came up...or worse thrown in a dumpster.

When I got my first set of Ludwigs, my Mom put my old 4-piece Lido Supreme kit in the newspaper for sale. A mother and father bought them for their 10-year-old son. I remember the day they came over to check them out and the look on that kids face...reminded me of myself when I first glanced them in a music store when I was 7 years-old. He was all smiles. I hope he got something out of them, and I wonder what ever happened to them, as I played them for almost 9 years.
 
Maybe we should do a topic where, if you bought a kit from a DFO member and still have it, post a pic and tag them. That could probably get kind of crazy though.
 
I don't really miss or want to see my old gear again, but I do find myself wondering how many times some of my cymbals in particular have been bought and sold and bought again. I'm sure some of them would have some crazy stories to tell!
 
The only drum I've ever owned and sold that I'm still sort of attached to is the 5 x 14 Fibes SFT690 fiberglass snare that I bought with my Vistalite drumset in 1973. THAT drum was a monster, with unlimited dynamic range, killer rimshots that sounded like a .38 being fired, and surprising sensitivity. Once I replaced the 1.6mm T-F top hoop with a Slingerland Rim-Shot cast hoop it was the perfect drum for me at that time. (The T-F hoops cracked after 2 – 3 months of me laying down rimshots in the same location on the drum for four hours a night.)

That snare drum is the only piece of drum equipment I've ever sold that I wish I still owned. I sold it and all the rest of my drum stuff in 1982 to a rock'n'roller whose only stated concern was whether or not my Zildjian 21" Rock cymbal would work for the five cymbal crashes that lead out of the bridge and back into the final verse of "Born to be Wild". After he tried the passage a couple of times he was sold and that afternoon I became drumless for the first time since just before my 12th birthday. (I soon saw the error of my ways and remedied the situation 2½ years later.)

This 1977 photo is the best one I could find that shows me playing my SFT690:

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I wrote in another thread about my very first snare drum that I regretted letting go and I wondered enough about where it was, that I had a Ludwig Pioneer search on pretty much every e-commerce website I belonged to.

I sold that snare drum along with my first drumset, and while there was nothing special about that kit (an old Westwood stencil kit in a black diamond pearl finish), I do wonder where it got to. It was a fun little kit to play. This is not the same finish, and my kit came without a snare drum, but it is the same badge and lugs, to give you an idea of the quality. Bought it from some guy's basement, complete with some beat up brass cymbals and the aforementioned Ludwig Pioneer, for $200 in 1986 I think.
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As it turns out I d know where my most treasured, former kits are:
  • My 70's Slingerlands's [walnut,14x24, 9x13, 10x14, 16x16, and 16x18] have been kept in pristine condition and reside in Boulder, CO.
  • My 80's Yamaha 7000 series [14x20, 8x12, 9x13, and 14x14] are still giggled regularly in the Dallas area
  • My 90's Recording Customs [cherry, 14x22, 8x10, 8x12, 10x14, and 12x15] live in Chicago and are getting regular use
  • My 70's Gretsch [Burnt Orange, 14x20, 8x12, and 14x14] live 20 miles away and are owned by the drummer in my current band.
Cool that my favorite sets are all in the hands of friends that love them them and play them regularly. None are willing to sell them back, though.
Damn!
 
I've only ever gotten rid of two kits. One was a mutt of random Pearl Forum or Export toms, and no-name snare, floor tom, and bass drum. I think the bass drum came from a kid's drumset. I traded it to a friend in exchange to some equally crappy electric guitars that didn't have any electronics and needed more work than 17 year old me could do. Second set was a Sunlite kit, which was a considerable upgrade. I ended up selling it a year or two later to a pawnshop because I couldn't find any other takers. I wish I had some pictures I have recordings of the Sunlite kit from my first bands' album. I don't really think about where they ended up. Probably the landfill for that first one at least.
 
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