Pic of my dixie couldn't upload, too big? anything I can do?

Yes, most Dixie drums that we see are MIJ stencil drums from the late 60s early 70s and appear to be made by Pearl. However, there is some evidence that there was an American Dixie brand, probably from the 40s or 50s. See this thread:

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=979&highlight=dixie

You bought your Dixie set at the Kent factory? That is very interesting. Right around that time, Kent began to import drums from Japan either because they couldn't keep up with demand or it was just cheaper to buy the shells as opposed to continue building them at their factory. I think it's interesting that they sold another brand of MIJ drums. Maybe they saw that the MIJ drums were actually better than what they were producing and decided, "screw it, let's just import 'em and throw our name on 'em." By the way, for anyone that cares, there is evidence that Kent imported drums from both Star and Pearl.

If your pics are too big to load, try resizing them in photoshop, try 75%, save that and post that pic.

Yep, it's probably a stencil kit, and you seem to have the general idea. I guess they're called stencil kits because the manufacturers (often Pearl or Star) would make kits and then "stencil" one of many brand names onto it.

We've got at least one collector around here: Jonnistix is the forum's resident made-in-Japan guru. I'd say that most of us would consider them to be vintage, even if they're not "high end" vintage drums.

I seem to recall the Dixie name being associated with Pearl. Post some pics and someone here will be able to tell you more about your drums.

You'll need to resize the picture to shrink it down a bit. If you don't have Photoshop ($$$), there are plenty of free programs that can resize images. Irfanview is a popular image viewer than can also do basic image manipulating like resizing and converting to different file formats.

A "stencil", as is the word for copying through a sheet of paper, is to make an image like the original. So all the old Star and Pearl kits as well as a couple of others, Teisco, Hoshino are the other 2 players, made reasonable copies, some quite good, of mostly Slingerland hardware. Ludwig, Gretsch and Rogers were very vigilant and sued to keep them from making exact copies like Star and Pearl, whild Bud Slingerland was notroriuosly cheap and would not spend the moneyt to take them on, wisely. I say this as it would likely have killed him off sooner if he had spent legal fees to pursue it. Any way, the thinner shells of the late 50s and early to mid 60s, 67ish...were very resonant. I love trhese thin mahogany lauan shells as they boom like all the old thinner shells. However, they do have a sound unto themeselves. Not quite Slingy mahog, and much lower tonally than Luds, Gretsch and Rogers due to the type and thickness of the mahogany used.

All this time, I thought it was a cup ...

Thanks skydog, still working on resizing photo. Too busy drumming I guess.

Hi Guys, I'm new to the forum and a bit late to this conversation. I have a Dixie set I've used for 37 yrs, got it new around that long ago, blue sparkle. It has sounded pretty good, still looks good and I never found the need to replace it. Back in high school I had to endure comments from ignorant and arrogant pseudo-drummers who thought they knew what they were talking about when they said it sucked, just because it wasn't a popular brand. I still don't know anyone else who had that brand but I'm still playing it today and I'm still having fun with it.

There is a drummer in Toledo, Ohio who plays a "blue oyster" Dixie kit for a band named Polka Floyd. All Pink Floyd all the time polka style. They look and sound great.

Hey BMW2002, you into 2002's? Me too. Shoot me an email @ [email][email protected][/email] if you want to talk about them.

Larry