Collecting drums for me has always been lots of fun and very rewarding. It’s always fun to hunt down a specific set or drum that can be tough to find and the reward is very satisfying once the task is complete. Some drums can be found rather quickly while others like this set can take many years, even decades! I talked about how I saw the Doors at the Hollywood Bowl on VHS for the first time in the late 80’s in my first article for NSMD. That video was a visual introduction to the Doors as I had only heard them on records prior to that. That video also gave me a nice glimpse of drummer John Densmore and that really cool Mod Orange Downbeat set that he used throughout most of the Doors career. I told myself when I started collecting drums after high school graduation in the summer of 1990 that I wanted to find my own Mod Orange Downbeat set. My only criteria for the set I wanted was that it had to have keystone badges, a rail and cymbal mount in the correct places. While the Mod Orange finish was offered by Ludwig from the late spring of 1967 through roughly 1972, I would really only have less than a three year window where a Downbeat set with keystone badges could be found as Ludwig changed to a blue and olive badge in very late 1969. No problem right?
I have spent countless hours looking at Mod Orange sets and saving pictures of them. I have been to countless drum shows as well as music stores and in the last 30 years of looking, have probably seen no more than 10 sets in Downbeat sizes. At least two of the sets I have seen have B/O badges which puts the build date later than I would like. Oddly enough I’d say about four of the sets I have seen probably surfaced within the last two years! One common problem with the Mod Orange finish is that they are very prone to fading in the purple areas. The orange itself can fade a bit too leaving a lot of sets to look fairly washed out. Conversely I do know someone that has a beautiful 1967 set with a matching jazz festival snare that looks like it was made yesterday. This set is probably the nicest original Downbeat in existence as none of the others I have seen come close. Strangely enough, the first Mod Orange piece I had ever bought was a canister throne from 1970. I bought it off eBay in the early 2000’s and still have it. Several years after that, a good friend and band mate of mine found a 1969 super classic set and grabbed those for me. I even found a 1971 club date in Mod Orange about 12 years ago. I have been very happy and blessed to own those sets but I still couldn’t help wanting that 1960’s Downbeat set.
Around 11 years ago, I happened upon a Craigslist ad that had a single 14” Mod Orange floor tom for sale. In a million years, I would never have guessed that I would come across a lone 14” floor tom. The drum is also very clean with lots of strong color. It was a nice add to my super classic set and that is where I figured it would stay. Because my 14” floor tom was not date stamped, I was able to guess that it had a late 1968 build date from looking at the 653XXX serial number. As fate would have it I met another collector on Facebook a few years ago that bought a Mod Orange set from 1970 that had an extra 12” tom from 1968 with the set. This person decided to sell me the 12 and surprisingly it is a perfect match to the 14” floor tom with a 654XXX serial number. This is when the thought of finding a 14x20 became my focus. It was several years later when the seller of the 12” tom informed me that he saw a Mod Orange bass drum in an Instagram post on Nelson’s drum shop page. I was quickly able to find out that the bass drum in question was indeed a 14x20 with a rail, cymbal mount and clear interior like my other two drums. My only concern was that the pictures from Nelson’s drum shop made the drum look quite faded compared to the 12 and 14 I had. I bought the drum though as I did not know if I would ever come across another bass drum like this. Fortunately when the drum showed up, it was not as faded as I thought it was and fits in very nicely with the other drums. It was also missing the rail mount as the original holes were all that was left. I had been saving a rail mount for years just in case I needed one for something just like this and it was a perfect fit for the drum. The bass drum also has a date stamp of Feb 24 1969 and a serial number with 680XXX making it a few months away from the toms! I even had a supraphonic from 1969 that I had been saving in case this set ever came together and the serial number on that is very close to the bass drum. It’s been roughly 32 years since I told myself I wanted a Mod Orange Downbeat set and the search is finally over. I have already gigged the set several times and they look and sound fantastic. The moral of the story is that you should never give up on things like this. It may take a long time but eventually you will find the drums of your dreams. Happy hunting!