Believe it or not....when you are close to 90...you will show some wear too!Hurting

Just noticed the Grand Rapids rubber stamped head!

I am in G.R.....what shop was it?Not too many here at the time..

Leedy and Lud were only in business from 1950-55..so that head is around 60 years old....

Could it read Knapps Drum Shop..or Knapp-Poole music? Hard to make out what it says on there....Those are the ones I see most often.....

Funny,I was JUST telling Sue minutes ago about a guy that ran a drum shop out of his home in the 20's...I went to the address label I found in a 20's Ludwig BD a few years ..a bungalow on Burton St S.E.,,,

Took me a minute..

I now see Knapps on the head...and also N.W.

Knapps was on Monroe St N.W...right smack downtown....which is now a huge high rise office building....

Okay, I will NOT be doing anything to it besides cleaning it up. After that I will probably throw it on a stand for a show piece or something. I just had no idea what effect it had on the value.

That is really cool about the head being from grand rapids. I wonder if that means it was a Michigan drum it's whole life? That would make it so much cooler.

Someone recommended Evans heads...Would that be a wise choice? I was going to throw a coated ambassador on the top and something on the bottom.

So do you guys want to know what I paid? You will probably hate me...

What does that mean? You'll have to forgive me, I am basically a brick wall with this stuff.

If the heads aren't ripped don't change them. Metal on the head hoop can scratch the shell and, it looks much better with the original/calfskin heads.

The drum shows some wear on the tubes and seams and may not "quite" be a 4K drum imo. Black Beauty prices haven't moved much in 10-15 years except for mint stuff.

I'll guess you paid $50. Put calf heads on it and the experts advice on snares and it will be an outstanding drum.

If you are wanting funds for other projects. Don't touch a thing. Sell it as a "as found original" which it is. Wish I had the money...

Good luck with whatever you do.

Creighton

Bun E. brings up a good point. The metal on modern hoops will leave those down scratches from tuning it here and there. I have seen the floating heads on these so you can`t let the metal part of the hoop touch the shell. You may not have hoop room.

I don`t see the room to seat the heads 1/8th all the way around so get rid of the metal ring bottom hoop and go with the calf or white plastic sucky hoop rings. Better yet use the calf heads, your gonna display it.

Yea, I already took the bottom head off. I think it had other heads on it at one point. There is light blemishes around the lip...

I am just undecided if I am using it or not. It sounded pretty good. I think I am going to track down some heads that won't screw it all up and go with that.

Either way, I think I did pretty decent for $45 ;)

it comes down to play it then display it so you can have time on one and not just have one. How many can say they used their 20`s BB for a few gigs or more ?

Just remember, Nothing ,nothing at all to it and it`s value will only go up. You run certain risks playing them. Surface cleaned, calf on each end, in a display and it`s collectors value as is. The only thing you need to remember is there`s nothing wrong with yours.

If I were still gig`n, I`d gig it for a year (with care/case) and then stow it.