Glad you could pick this up. Looking forward to seeing it when it's cleaned up

Michael

I've seen pre war Rogers drums with Gretsch "rocket lugs".

Did Gretsch make these sets, or Rogers, or W+A?

I had a late 40's/early 50's 16x14 floor tom with Gretsch Rocket lugs and Wfl floor tom legs/mounts. It was a W&A drum.

I was going to say W&A, but Mikey beat me to the bell. At the turn of the last century W&A was (originally) a drum hardware outfit and their lugs, stands, mounts etc. ended up on just about every major manufacturers product lines. When W&A started building and selling their own line of drums they used the same Jasper shells that Gretsch used, but they would add their own re-rings (sometimes three rings per drum) and custom (Perfection trade mark,) bearing edges. I'm not at all surprised to see Rocket lugs on WFL drums. Those same parts were being used by everybody. W&A was just about the only game in town for 'generic' drum parts at the time.

John

Gretsch made drums sold under other brand names early in their history. My GUESS is that that is where the Bass and snare originated (sort of an early "stencil" kit). and the two toms look to be possibly WFL with Zephyr lugs (maybe I can't see them that well).

Drummers weren't quite so brand-centric back then so if a guy with a bass and snare wanted to add on a couple of toms he might well select some from a different maker due to price or availability. As long as they were the same color that seemed to be good enough for a lot of drummers. You see a lot of period photos where there is more than one brand of drum integrated into a set, although usually they will be the same color (almost always either WMP or BDP).

So cool!! Major mojo!!

Cheers

That close up of the BMP finish in pic 2 is nuts. What a cool pattern.