I agree. And your yellow record cleaner - I know the guy who owns that business. Lives in my town. Good little device he invented :)

Hey Human71! How's thangs in the 514? Have you ever checked out big indoor flea markets (marchés au puces)? I've had a few finds at one here in Quebec City. Just a thought. Apart from that it's Kijiji for me & donations from friends. I check out Les Pacs once in a blue moon too, but find it tedious.

Hey Funky ! Everything's good over here. I 've been to several marchés au puces in the past but not for drums.. I should check out the one on the Met in St Leonard, as it's pretty big.. I do the Lespac thing once in a while as well. I also check out Craigs outside of Montreal, like Rhode Island, because i have two cousins there that are drummers (one still plays and the other was an enthusiast who never played in band, but is a traveling sales rep for Honeywell for the Tri-State area) who can help me out with purchase and shipping if there was ever a ridiculous deal to be found..But he's so busy sometimes that i couldn't possibly bother him with things like that. However, if i asked him to do it for me, he would in a second. He's like a brother to me, and that helps ! ;)

Spring time is here!!! Which means that a lot of people are throwing stuff out and that's what all of us really want...Look at these 2 toms that i found in Westmount. A day's worth of labour, new wrap and here it is. Anything can turn up

Yeah man, those are awesome.. When you say new wrap, does it mean you rewrapped them ?

Yes.. i opted for Mod orange and they turned out near perfect.

I think a lot of the guys who skillfully locate deals with the intent to flip generally keep their methods of discovery secret.

I too wish I knew the secret. Vintage drums don't turn up often around here. I suspect larger cities in the Midwest and East is where to look.

I'm in Tampa too, and found the Ludwigs pictured on the 1st page in town.

The secret is consistent frequent searches, and the ability to quickly scope for deals. I can case a pawn shop in 45 seconds, no problem. Because of this, usually a night or two a week after work I will hit about 20 of them in a big loop, with a few thrift stores along the way.

After a decade of doing this, I have made probably $10,000 or so from buying mostly guitars, some amps and a few drum things here and there. I see less drum stuff, but I also knew very little about drums until probably 5 years ago. In the time since then I have found a late 90's Supraphonic Snare for $90, and an Acrolite for $40. I came across a 60's Zildjian Avedis with about 3,000 rivets in it (?!!) that I did not buy, and a few overpriced (or market priced) items.

The thing about flipping is you have to be knowledgable enough to know what something is and know how much to pay without any research - or you will get burned. There are plenty of fakes out there also! A pawn shop near me has a set of drums I can't ID that they think are 70's ludwigs. They are clearly asian drums - but are priced at what many would think of as a steal $300 (if only they were real!).