Hi,

Another Slingerland of yesteryear enters the collection. This one came to me from Mark Cooper of Cooper's Vintage Drums. Mark informed me that he has only seen two Sparkling Silver Radio Kings from this era in all of his years of collecting. This one is my first.

1938 SLINGERLAND 6.5x14 SPARKLING SILVER RADIO KING MODEL

The Shell:

The Sparking Silver was pretty sparkling to begin with but I was able to polish it up even more. There is not much fade as can be seen in the photo of the disassembled shell. The solid maple shell is in-round, the interior is very clean with tight reinforcement rings and there is a pencil marked "N" (factory designation for nickel hardware?) that I have also seen on the interiors of Ludwig & Ludwig shells. The cloud badge is clean and the grommet is tight. Mark warned me that the shell was a "full-sized shell" meaning that only Aquarian American Vintage heads would fit but after digging through my stash of calf heads I found a Radio King (lightening bolt) batter and an of-the-era slunk (snare side) head that both fit, so all is good...with a little added luck.

The Hardware:

All of the nickel plated hardware is in good shape and polished up nicely. The 3 pt. strainer works fine, holds tight and has that infamous tilt to the right. The RK snare bridges are the later 3-hole versions. The top rim is the engraved "Slingerland Radio King" version. The bottom rim has the 4-screw gates but there are no "manufacturer's cartouche" stamps on either side of the rim so it looks like that procedure was discontinued by the time this drum was manufactured. Not much more to report.

Enjoy!

Mike Curotto