It's funny; the guy I bought my drum from originally wanted $1399. His reasoning was that stained (not lacquered) Camcos were still relatively rare, and thus held their value. I showed him what other Oaklawn Aristocrats had gone for, and he came down pretty quickly. I offered him $800 and we settled on $900. Guess he needed the cash. The drum is mint and sounds terrific, so I don't regret it a bit.

I suppose this trend is both a good and bad thing. Good that the drums are being recognized for their magnificence and true value. Bad for us that would like to purchase additional drums. My Holy Grail snare is a 15 x 8 'Concert' Oaklawn Aristocrat. I doubt I'll ever have the chance to get one, as I've never heard of anyone who's even seen one. Thing is, I'm sure there are quite a few sitting in a closet at some High School or University.

Stephen

I get asked the same question a lot. "What finishes are rare when it comes to Camco?". Since Camco drums themselves are fairly rare my answer is "All of them".

Over the years I have owned many Camco (why does the spell checker here underline Camco when you are typing a post?) kits........pearls, sparkles, moirés, and lacquer finishes. I've seen various kits owned by others in finishes I haven't had.

Never laid eyes on 3D Moire.

As I recall, Antipodes, in Australia, has a 3D Moire kit. I'm in the States. Go figure.

I'm just glad I bought mine when I did, mid 80's... $300.00 cash. It was missing the bottom lugs off the 16 and the reso bass drum lugs. I made a few phone calls and found two small music stores that had about five medium to large boxes of Camco parts between them, lugs, bass drum lug risers, tom mounts, legs, etc... I bought all they had from both stores and paid a total of fifty bucks for all. All they wanted to do was get rid of what they considered was dead stock at that time. I still have all the bits, and I won't sell 'em.

Those were the days, before others began to figure out what they were. No genius here either. All blind luck and lucky timing...

Ok, as my recent score has been quoted I'd better show some pix now I've figured out how to resize pix. They are road-worn but shells look to be sound, the only remaining bass drum rim needs to be properly fixed and they need a seriously good clean. Here they are, straight outta the box. You think they look rough? You shoulda seen the road case.

I've now taken all the lugs and other hardware off the bass drum and am currently soaking them in Coke (a first for me - does it work? I usually do bicarb of soda mixed with dishwashing liquid but it requires more elbow grease than I'm inclined to use just now).

Now all I need to do is find that elusive 12" rack (ideally at the current piece rate of $75) and I really will have the deal of a lifetime.

The whole perceived value thing is really interesting and extremely geographical - and not just for drums.

On the "kit" I just scored, for example, the guy I got these from (a) had only a vague idea they were "a thing" and (b) had exactly three people contact him in total (in a country of 22 million people - and one of them I tipped off via DFO), two of them 600 miles away and me 900 miles away. Nobody beating his door down exactly.

When I lived in England it was a bit the same - those that knew about them "knew" about them but there were so few there was virtually no competition. I picked up a mint LA kit in Birmingham after I put an ad in the UK drum mag, whatever it was called - the guy had them, had never thought to advertise because no one knew what they were. Similarly, I picked up a Chanute kit in a London music shop because, apparently, I was the only one who actually knew what they were. Same with a really nice LA 6 1/2" (bought from another Australian, bizarrely). None of them were expensive.

So this might be my new thing.....just search the Oz market for Camco LAs and pick them up for pennies....because that's all they ever imported to Australia and nobody really knows what they are.

Mind you, it may be a huge pain in the butt to sell any of them if I actually ever want to unless I can work out a way to get them to the US.

As for the 3D Moire Oaklawn kit - I have to admit it's a re-wrap. I scored the shells off ebay when I was in the US, picked them up myself in Long Beach then picked up some of the current production 3D moire wrap when I was on my way back in New York from Canal Plastics for about $9 a yard (might've even been cheaper). Happened to compare it to a real 3D Moire kit further uptown at Steve Maxwell's and was blown away by how close it was.

Mind you, now maple finishes have come back into my life, I might finally need to sand those Oaklawn babies back (they were originally a lacquer finish, badly stripped) and go for an all maple look. Now I need to find someone who can do a decent nitro lacquer job.

Oh yeah... so sweet it makes my teeth ache.

You know, until I retired in late 2008, I had no clue about the perceived value these things command now. They were the only drums I had, and got used for a variety of things. It wasn't until some friends had a gig at this ity bitty tiny (I mean small) bar, with an even smaller stage, that I began to look into drums again.. Their drummer wasn't able to make it and there was no way my big rock kit (24, 13, 14, 16, 18) would fit on the stage. I picked up one of those little Gretsch Catalina kits and spewed my soda when I saw what Camcos were going for.

That was indeed a WT(insert verb or noun here) moment.

Those will clean up dandy. Luckily, the 12" rack tom will probably be the easiest (and for sure least expensive) of the drums to find.

Congratulations!

Antipodes, are you aware of Kentville Drums in Sydney? I believe he has his hand in refinishing.

Yep I know Steele at Kentville very well. He's just finished cutting down a new 18" shell to a 12" depth and copying Camco Oaklawn bearing edges and drilling for lugs because I'd given up on ever finding an actual Camco 18". He was the first one I told - he's actually been a useful shop front when I wanted to sell a Tuxedo lug COB because his FB page and his shop have become such a local focus for vintage drum nuts.

I'm actually meant to pick it up next week - no idea what to do with that shell now.

And I may use him to broker what I've concluded is the necessary sale of my beast of an oval-badged Oaklawn maple kit 14", 16", 18", 24" x 18" (seriously) with matching though slightly holey snare (which he plugged for me). Beautiful kit but I've run out of space and I'm not playing big venues or particularly loud stuff on account of me being a bit old now.

The sale on that AC Blue seemed to have caused a bit of a stir amongst the small but passionate Camco community.

It was purely a case of reuniting a snare in a rare finish with a set in a rare finish.It surely helped that it was in superb condition and that I had the cash available. (sold a 4-piece Rogers Fullerton to fund it)

No way I would have spent that kind of money without having the set to complete the picture.

I still say it was worth every penny...Your Alice Cooper Blue L.A. Camcos are to me, the rarest of all the L.A. era kits and flat out gorgeous. They remind me of the Strat that Clapton uses for some of his shows.