This is a rare find. A fully original Grestch 8x12, 14x14, 14x18, 5.5x14 is rare in any color and condition, but especially rare in burgundy sparkle and as a "1 owner" set. Burgundy sparkle was the Art Blakey color (Mel Lewis too), among others, and it is very rare in these sizes. This set was bought brand new by the person who has brought it to us to sell.

The 6 ply set was very well cared for and also includes original snare stand, cymbal L arm, high hat stand and two bass drum pedals.

The set is very clean. Photos are very detailed here. All serial numbers very close as you can see (109202, 109372, 109545, 109841, and remember, Gretsch never built these in speficic serial number order, so this is a very close grouping. They just grabbed paper tags and glued them in). The set fits modern heads. Set has hex screws for the lugs. On the toms and snare drum there is a washer in addition to the lock washer for each hex screw. On the 14x18 bass drum there is only the lock washer. This is the way the set was built. The color on the entire set is quite strong and even across all the drums. Minor light pitting on hardware consistent with age. Owner replaced the felt strip on the bass drum internal muffler with a leatherette strip. This has some of the typical sloppiness in drilling the grommet hole for the snare and bass drum. There are slight splits where the drill bit came through on the inside. They should have used a small piece of wood up against the inside of the shell as they drilled the grommet hole so as to avoid splintering, but they were focused on throughput in these days. Lastly, the logo on the bass drum resonant head is smudged a bit.

As we know, quite often the inlays on RB era bass drum hoops would fade color faster than the shell wrap, and they would also tend to curl at the edges. The owner replaced the bass drum inlays with merlot sparkle inlays. You can see the slight color difference between the merlot sparkle inlays and the shell wrap. Contact Steve at vintage drums@aol.com for more information and pricing. This set is located in our Chicago-land store in Glendale Heights, IL.

C.