Well, I went up today afer driving 100 mikes each way to take a look..The drums they had are in bad shape all are mid 1990's' Pearl's..The snare's all need parts mosty the strainer's are the problem.The toms all need head/s one even has a taped up lug on it.The bass drums again need head's 2 need rims the wood hoop's are craked and a few lugs need to by replaced..Now i can got all these part's new going over my cost it will be about 450.00 to get all the drums back in order.I did spend about 1 hour working on the snares to get them up and running.I will give some new extra heads and some new stix's...But the problem is that the room of drums that the music teacher will trade for my work and parts.Are some good old drums,I counted 47 snare drums from 6.5 to12" deep The head size is from 14" to 17".The bass drums about 30 of them most are 22" to 30"..8" to 16" deep..I stoped counting the toms at 40 a mix of mounted,marching,floor toms 12,13,14,15,17.floor toms are 14,16..The age of the drums i would say are from 1930-1990..Name's are Ludwig,Rogers,Leedy,Camco,All of the drums are missing parts some are missing badge's hoop's ete.Most finish's are sprakle with some pearl finish's mixed in..I did not put the drums together as set's but i would say maybe 10 complete set's from 1930's to about mid 70's.I told them that i would think about it fixing the drums but i would have to check on the parts.So with all said would you just do the work on the drums and take intrade all of their drums? Still offer some cash and work ?...Mikey

Mikey,

It sounds to me like you would be getting the MUCH better end of the deal, regardless of condition. Assuming you could do the work on the existing drums for $450 (seems like a lot of parts that you mentioned, but you would know) and you sold every drum thus far counted at an average of $25 (which is probably a really low average), you would still be ahead by about $2,500 minus your time on both the vintage drums and the current school equipment as well as travel time and expenses.

If you are interested in their drums, then I would suggest taking them up on their offer, but also arrange to do some clinic time with any of their drummers that are willing to learn how to do some of this repair and tuning work. I would have loved having someone like you come to my high school when I was a kid to teach drum mechanics for lack of a better term. The school would probably appreciate clearing out the much needed space, they get their drum line up and running, hopefully their kids learn something important, and some cool drums might get recirculated.

If you feel like you are getting too good of a deal, you could offer to do the repair work and clinics for a few seasons but I would suggest letting them pay for the parts. You might find that kids will do a better job of taking care of the equipment if you run a successful clinic or two, especially letting them know how much the parts cost. Personally it sounds like a win for both parties.