there is etching going around the drum in the middle.
Printable View
there is etching going around the drum in the middle.
If you pick up either the History of Gretsch drums book and Harry Cangany's Vintage drum book, there are pix of the snare with etching. Both are very good books on learning about vintage drums.
I own them both......... [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
Engraving?
Danny,
Here is a quote from Rhythm Magazine's November 2000 issue in which Vinnie describes his Longo snare drum.
"I have one unusual snare that was given to me after a gig with Sting in Florida. It's a funny caramel color with a solid wood shell, and has Longo Custom Drums written on it. I've never seen the guy who gave it to me again, but I've had a lot of mileage from the drum, which has a nice, solid, fat sound ?almost like a Radio King but more contemporary."
Randy my COB gretsch snare does have some marks engraved all around her... I thought it was from the 90's because of the square badge. I'll try to mail you a picture of it.
My snare is a 4160 model and the serial number is #130884... I emailed gretsch to find out the year of the drum but they didn't even bother to reply... [img]graemlins/thumbs_down.gif[/img]
If any of you are interested in the Longo snare, I have the exact same drum that Vinnie has. Vinnie gave me Neal Longo's contact info, I called him and he built me the exact snare that he made for Vinnie. It is a 5" and some change X 14" solid walnut shell with maple reinforcement hoops. If any of you want to get on of these drums let me know!
Gretsch lacks support in knowing what year a drum was made. You can tell by badge when they were made in a round about way, although Gretsch kind of thru curves every once in awhile. Baldwin era Gretsch(70's early 80's) are a square badge first starting with a stop sign badge.
Randy- Have you heard of any news of Rob Cook doing a Gretsch book? Someone mentioned that to me awhile ago but I haven't heard any news about it. The Rogers and Slingerland books he did were extremely thorough, maybe a bit too much info like the names and pics of the factory workers but hey, they were probably the most important ingredient to making those high quality drums. I felt that there was alot of info left out of the Gretsch book IMO. I wish he would have put all past catalogs in like what Cook did with the Slingerland and Rogers book.
No, I have not heard of any such book. But you are right in that the only Gretsch book on the market today left many things out.