I estimate this to be a 56 or 57? This is one of my fav. Stick choppers and the nodal/gladstone floor brackets. This drum has re rings also, 3 thin plies all maple, and they dont have silver but the shell does. The 3 ply are very thin, 1/16 each, and are all maple. The 14 floor is odd, its been discussed on here before. The grommet just barely makes it through. Die cast stick chopper, and the 3 ply are relatively thick. The 3 ply snare is a little over 4 inches, 4 1/4 i believe. The 3 ply 12 rack has stick choppers, and the 3 ply are very thick. Bass has faucet type rods, cymbal L arm on top center, and the rail is between 2 lugs close to the batter. I estimate this to be around 1958?Ģnd is a 20 12 14 4x14 all 3 ply green sparkle. Ive since added a 3 ply snare, which is one of my fav snares. The 14, 6 ply, didnt have gretsch hoops and has the bolt through diamond floor bracket. the rack has stick chopper and the 3 ply are semi thin. The rail is between 2 lugs and up torwards the batter. It has the faucet type bass t rods, the die cast COB cymbal L arm, off to my right, with gretsch stamp heavy and at a angle. Ok, the 1st one is Midnight blue pearl, 20 12 14 no snare. This is only an educated guess on my part though.no written docsuments to back my 'guess' up. At least I think there were not as common as the 3ply 16" toms. when the transistion from 3 to 6ply was happening (late 50's) there were not a lot of 3ply 14" floor toms. Also - I might add - and I'm only making an educated guess here - because there were a lot of kits with the larger drums in the 50's 22/9x13/16 floor toms. In the late 50's early 60's you see mixed ply kits.they're not that uncommon from what I've been seeing. I think because Gretsch was in transition from 3 to 6 ply in the late 50's (some 6ply have turned up from the mid 50's and I have a 1947 Gretsch floor tom that is 6ply) they filled orders with what they had on the shelves. Most 58 kits I see have the 'nodal' ft leg supports and I've seen the diamond leg plates on 59 floor toms. Gretsch started to switch from the nodal (some say Gladstone style) floor tom leg supports in the late 50's so far as I'm able to tell.
The bass drum has the 50's style fawcet t-rods like yours.ĭiamond leg plates on the floor tom. The snare is the only one with stickchopper hoops - the toms have die-cast
The set came as a complete kit that included a 6ply floor tom. I'm assuming the drums are 58-59 (probably not 60) or so because who knows how long they were in the music store before being purchased. He bought the drums new in 1960 from a local music store that has long since closed its doors. She inherited the drums when her father, Gary Pearce, died in 2005. I bought this Gold Sparkle late 50's kit from the original owner's daughter. I don't know if you remember my kit - I posted photos here at various times since I bought it Sept 26 2009. I love those Copper Mist drums of yours - simply beauties! Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this?
Any thoughts on that subject? Does the combination of the 12 & 20 3 ply with a 6 ply 4X14 & 14 FT make for a preferable mix / match sound wise?ĭoes anyone know of any original Gretsch mixed shell sets with a different combination?ĭoes having an original set with 3 ply & 6 ply shells diminish the desirability and value a lot? I wonder if this was a pre determined mix? Rather than an arbitrary combination. What caught my attention was that the set had the same mix of 3 ply & 6 ply shells (the bass & 12 were 3 ply & the snare and FT were 6 ply). The set sold for $1775 & the snare was sold separately to the same buyer for $650. Recently it was just pointed out to me that a repainted Gretsch Copper Mist Jazz set had recently sold on Ebay. These drums are beautiful and sound wonderful. The set had a pair of old K 15" hi hats that were sold separately as was a 20" old K ride - the cymbals were the Type III The TT had stick chopper hoops and the snare & FT had die cast stick choppers, the bass had faucet handle tee's & the claws that go with them. The 14" FT & the 4X14 snare were 6 ply shell with silver interiors and no tags. The 14X20 bass & the 12" tom were 3 ply shells with silver interior but no paper tags. All the original hardware and some of the original calf heads were still on the drums too. The set was delivered to me in old hard cases that had some newspapers in the bottom from the Milwaukee Journal that were dated in 1968. The set was pretty much left intact for a long period of time. I had the winning bid at $6,600 and back then thought it was a pretty good price for the time (around the height of the market). Several years ago I bought a very nice Gretsch Copper Mist progressive jazz set that was offered on ebay.