Holiday Greetings,
It's the Holiday season, and I have a great Holiday drum set to show you this month. Rogers drums are very cool and so collectible. I am always on the search for a nice Rogers set, and love the history of this great drum company. In the beginning this company was a drum head manufacturer. Rogers became the makers of some of the best drums ever made. By the time this featured drum set was made, Rogers drums were the most expensive of all their competitors.
I will tell you how I came to own this set after I describe them. They have script badges. There is a script badge on both sides of the mounted tom. The shells are maple with reinforcement rings. The lugs are Beavertails. The Beavertail lugs were a great improvement over the Bread and Butter lugs which would crack very easily. The Swiv-o-matic tom mount is factory placed in the center of the bass drum. The floor tom has a factory extra knobby. The bass drum is 20"X14", the floor tom is 16"X16", the ride tom is a 13"X9" and the snare is a matching 14"X5" Powertone. The finish is a vibrant gold sparkle. The interiors of the drums are painted solid grey. That indicates that they are early 1960s. The tags inside indicate that they are Holiday Model drums. The Cleveland tag means the drums were warehoused and sold from Cleveland. After CBS bought the company in 1966 warehousing was moved to Dayton. All these drums were made at Covington, Ohio. The Dayton drums have grey speckled interiors. There is no difference in the quality of pre-CBS and post-CBS drums made in Ohio. The factory was later moved to Fullerton, California.
The drum salesman at the music store gave me the number of the man who was selling some Rogers drums. He said he had several Rogers sets and wanted to sell some of them. We set up a time that I could come to see the drums and hopefully get a set. When my wife and I got to his home it was very upscale. To make a long story short, he took us to a room filled with beautiful Rogers drums. There were red onyx, grey ripple, and other beautiful kits in there. I soon learned that none of these sets were for sale. He took us to a cabinet where there were five Powertone snares displayed. White pearl, blue sparkle, gold sparkle, red sparkle, and I'm not sure about the last one. I think it was black diamond.
The guy said he had the full kits to match each of these snares and everything is in pristine condition. I said “great! Let's see them”. He said, “Which one?”. This was most unusual for me. I wanted to see them all, but I could tell he really didn't want to drag out all those drums, so I said “Let's see the white ones”. He said, “Follow me” and we went downstairs and into a closet. He pulled out a case then two. Inside were the tom toms and they were very nice. I said, “You know, I would like to see the blue ones too”. He put the toms back in the case, put them back in the closet, and said, “Follow me” again. I began to feel like if I wanted to go to the next one there was no turning back. My wife was still in the big drum room and I was going on the hunt through the house with the owner. We got to the blue ones, also in a little room in cases. It was the same as before. “Do you want these?” “I would like to see the gold ones.” He packed everything back up and led me away to another room. By this time I was getting concerned about my wife, and I began to think I better pick one or else I would lose my chance. When I saw the gold ones - this set I'm showing you - I said “that's it!.” He was pleased that I didn't have to see them all. We made a deal and I loaded them up. It was really a fun experience.
I hope you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season. Keep looking for those great attic finds.
Later, Phil Wilson