Vintage Drums vs. Vintage Pads: challenges for collectors

I've been collecting vintage drum pads for awhile, over a decade. In my efforts to learn as much as I can about them, I've taken it upon myself to research each pad that comes into my humble little collection. Collectors of vintage drums do this too; in fact, there are a number of books published with histories of each major drum company and photos of significant drum models throughout their histories. Books are now available for Ludwig, Slingerland, Gretsch, and many more.

These histories seldom, if ever, offer photos of practice pads. This is largely because Pads hold little interest for a collector who has room to store and display full-sized drums -- and drum kits -- at home.

In fact, I am the only person I know of who has made it a point to focus on pads and, to a lesser extent, vintage sticks.

The primary reason most collectors focus on drums is that they're sexy. Like vintage cars, each make and model from a certain age has its own distinctive markings and style. They look as beautiful as they sound. And if you find one in poor condition, it's a fun challenge to try and restore it, just like a classic car. Parts are out there for the swapping.

A secondary, but no less important reason for the lack of attention given to pads, is that, unlike many drums, they are not date-stamped or utilize a serial number in the manufacture process. Taking it farther, a number of manufacturers had their pads all made by one or two factories, and simply embossed with the appropriate brand name and logo. Practice pads from the 1940s through 70s were a low-profit item, cheap and easy to make and sell, and they were never intended to be sexy. A practice pad was, and is, a simple tool that aids in drummer development.
With one or two factories cranking out cheap practice pads for mutliple companies, it was common to see the exact same photos or illustrations of a pad design in the catalogs of multiple drum companies.

1. Slingerland, circa 1938. Note the design of the bottom three pads in the photo.

2. George Way, circa 1950. Note the design of the top three pads shown here. There is virtually NO difference in design or construction of these pads from those in the Slingerland catalog of 13 years earlier. That's because there was no real change in standard pad designs during these years.




3. Here's another example. Ludwig Drum catalog, circa 1957. Note the standard rubber-on-wood pad designs shown along the top of the page. Now look at the all-rubber Porto-Pad at the far upper left, and the rubber-on-metal design just to the right of it. The "All-Metal" pad is a design that was adapted from one appearing in the 1950 George Way catalog (which had a round rubber pad instead of a square one). The rubber pad is a design first marketed by the WFL Drum Company, which was absorbed into Ludwig during a consolidation in the 1950's.

The upshot of these examples is that, with so many manufacturers offering practice pads of similar (if not identical) size and design, and with the buyout and consolidation of drum companies throughout this "golden" age of rudimental drumming, it's very hard to determine whose design came first. It's even harder to determine the exact age of a vintage pad because along with this reality, there were no serial numbers applied to pads.

The only pads I've been able to approximate an age on are two with unusual identifying characteristics and/or short shelf lives. The first was my Slingerland Radio King practice pad, which dates from the late 1940's. I was able to date this because of the unusual badge design, which was only used on Radio King practice pads for a few years after WWII and went out of production by 1950-51. The other pad is my recently-acquired Timpette, which was easy to date because of its very limited production run in the late 40s -- information which I was able to research on Google Patents.

If you collect drums and have not yet used Google Patents to aid in your historical research, I strongly urge you to check it out. Though it's generally more useful for researching innovations in design rather than researching by model and year, this site has been invaluable as I've researched the age and design of each of my vintage practice pads -- and in two cases, specialty practice sticks.

Other resources which are more helpful for researching model and year include vintage drum catalogs and individual advertisements, school music educator magazines and the occasional peer review journal (such as PASIC's Percussive Notes). Peer review journals for most musical topics can be found with the help of your public library.
You can sometimes find ads in the back pages of specialty publications like Drum Corps World, which may help you to approximate the age and model of marching percussion instruments.
Finally, always check photographs taken during the era in which you think your drum dates from, as close-ups can reveal small but important differences in the design of lugs, snare strainers and more.

As ever, I am always interested in vintage pads and hearing about what you have. Contact me through the CONTACT link at right. Cheers!