Here is a video of my good friend and Nashville drummer, Eric Berringer, taking them for a spin. Please enjoy with good speakers or headphones.

Purchasing a vintage made in Japan drum kit can be a gamble. Their edges can be rough. The shells can be out of round and their hardware can break easily. I guess you can see why most were often neglected and, more than likely, just thrown away. Some are made the same while others are more than what they seem. This Pearl President drum kit is one of them.

I’d like to first clarify that it’s very hard to come by good information about vintage MIJ drums. There are over 100 names associated with them. To name a few, here are names Pearl made drums under: Lido Supreme, American Custom, Apollo, Whitehall, Cooper, Astro and ZimGar. Just like Yamaha; Pearl wanted to take things a little further.

Even though they have been making drums since the 50’s; in 1967, Pearl introduced 10 drum set configurations. One of them being the President Outfit (No. P-22). They were set apart by their attractive styled “diamond cut” lugs while the other lines had Slingerland “inspired” lugs. This catalog only showed their silver scripted badges. 2 years later (1969) Pearl decided to make all their entire drum catalog with their diamond cut lugs. They all came with metal hoops with pearl inlays as well. The “President” were still the only line being made out of plastic fiber claiming to be weather resistant, giving you more tone and were perfectly round. The other drum models were made out of “non-warping hard shells” which we all know to be luan mahogany.

In the 1969 catalogue the "President” kit was the only one to show a rectangle badge with the words president on them. They also said Pearl and Japan. These President kits were built till 1973. They still offered great looking pearl wraps such as this Tiger Eye white pearl, marine pearl and gold grain pearl. I love the oyster pearl wrap. Based on this information (warp/badge/lugs/metal bass drum hoops) I put my kit somewhere in the late 60s/early 70s.

Something does make this kit a little different than the ones printed on the pages. First thing you notice is that my badge is different. It just says Pearl Japan. It’s missing the word President. This is considered a “modded” badge. Secondly, these shells are neither plastic fiber glass or cheap mahogany. They are seamless phenolic. The only thing I can tell you about them is they are synthetic. They were hand wrapped around precision molds to produce a shell of uniform thickness. They have sharp edges, will never go out of round and have a very thunderous tone to them. Pearl also utilized these shells for Vari-Pitch cannons and Vari-Pitch snare drums. Those were some insane innovations. I’d love to get my hands on either of those to try out.

This kit is equipped with Evans frosted EC2 on toms and Evans frosted EQ4 on bass. I did'n’t bothered to put reso heads on them. They just sound so good. Honestly, I think I was too lazy to put them on when I first got this kit.

The snare being used is one I recently finished building. It’s a 3rd & 4th 6x14 zebra wood/maple/zebra wood snare with an Evans calftone head. There will be more to come on that snare very soon.

There is one thing that has me scratching my head. Phenolic shells weren’t mentioned by Pearl until 1977. That’s 4 years after they stopped making the President kits. The lugs and most of the cool wraps were discontinued as well. I am positive that the hardware on the bass drum and tom were added by someone who owned this kit before me. There are 6 holes from previous hardware which have been taken off. I know the spacing is for a tom rail mount and one is for a cymbal holder. The extra 2 holes by the tom I don’t know for sure what it could be for. Correct me if I am wrong but I’ve never seen a kit with 2 cymbal holders on it.

I’m very happy to own this kit just on shell composition and wrap alone. It’s a real eye and ear turner. This is available for rent through 3rd & 4th Drum Co. in Nashville, TN.