59 on May 18th? Me too!

This sure has been a great story to follow, and yes, I am very excited for you. I get all happy when I have just one little part coming in the mail, cant imagine six boxes containing those beautiful drums along with some items that your not even sure of. Please keep us informed.

I picked the drums and gear up today. They're not bad but I wouldn't say 'diamond in the rough'.

The hats are stamped Japan on the underside.....yes....pie plates. The 15" K Zildjian looks old - I will check it out more....very nice sounding cymbal.

One of the bass drum t-rod claws is broken off.......how do you do that?!

I think the drums are mid-late 50's. The snare drum has a 'milled' snare gate on the die-cast snare-side hoop so I'm leaning to late 50's maybe. Some of the original Broadkaster calfhide heads are on the drums - most of them damaged.....except for the bass drum heads....= no holes but they do have cracks/tears on the outsides of the fleshhoops.

The drum throne is usable.

This kit has been hugely neglected and will need a lot of cleaning and some repair to get it playable. Most of the parts are intact - maybe missing a screw here and there from first glance. There area some dings and scratches on the finish but from what I can see the wrap is in good shape.

It will be fun bringing it back to life.

Photos to come later.

Looking forward to your progress Gary.

The snare drum is cleaned and put together - in good company with one of my Gretsch kits here. I may tuck calfhide on the snare and the rest of the kit but for now I will use plastic heads - a used Gretsch Permatone here.

The snare and the rest of the shells cleaned great. No damage to the red sparkle wrap other than a little fade and a few small scuff marks here and there - nothing of any concern. All the shells are 3ply and very good condition. The bearing edges are in excellent shape. Hardware is good - some rust - I like removing rust.....part of the fun.

I like the bass drum hoops the way they are - with some of the paint worn off....I think I'll leave it like that.

Those shells look great. The kit will look great cleaned and put back together.

Yes those shells look very nice.

Sweet looking indeed !!

wow very nice!

Whats the scoop on that cymbal too?

The 15" K looks to be late 40's early 50's - sounds good too. I checked it against what's on page 250 of The Gretsch Drum Book......but it's only a guess. I have a photo of the scripting up here on the Cymbal part of the Forum but no replies so far. This is what it looks like.