I’ve always loved vintage drums, from the time I was in high school and understood that drums could last long enough to become vintage.
Of course, I couldn’t possibly afford to own anything really collectible, and the many rental addresses of my young adulthood didn’t provide enough security for me to trust keeping anything super-expensive and rare at home anyway. So I stick with practice pads — on those days, so wonky that hardly anyone collected them seriously — and a few treasured pairs of sticks and brushes.
I’d owned a couple of different sets that today would fetch respectable collector’s prices. Both were obtained cheaply when I was young. The first, a 1960s Pearl President, was my sixteenth birthday GIFT from my father. He bought it from a fellow instructor at Mt Hood Community College, who was storing it for a young man who never came home from Vietnam. He placed a call to the young man’s mother, who gave her blessing and told him to sell it cheaply to a student. So my dad paid a hundred bucks for everything, including hi-hat and crash cymbals. I played that kit through the end of high school and all the way through my junior year of college. Then I took a year off from school, moved downtown and stored my drums in the space above my Murphy bed. One day, I came home from my barista job to discover my apartment had been broken into. The thieves took my boom box, my cassette tapes, all my nice Oxford shirts, and my Pearl drumkit. I was heartbroken. They had kicked in the door, breaking the door jam and one of the hinges. The elderly manager was asleep in the basement and never heard a thing. The thieves had broken into several apartments this way, and there was nothing to be done.
A few years later, I had gone back to school, and moved into another, more secure apartment, and saved up my money and bought another kit, this one a Ludwig “Ringo Starr” model with a beautiful white marine finish. I used that kit for a few years in pit orchestras and as the drummer for a vocal jazz quartet, and loved playing it. Then, I lost my day job and had to sell my drums. I made twice what I’d paid for them, but I’ve never again owned that fancy a drumkit.
Fast forward to now, and the drum kit I play today. Since I’m not gigging, I’m content with a suitcase kick drum, a selection of snare drums and some cymbals. It fits in the corner of my studio, sounds good, and Sweetie doesn’t mind when I want to play indoors most days.
But I still have the vintage itch.
I decide that I’m going to focus on vintage models from a budget brand, so I won’t have to invest as much money. CB700 drums were part of my school days, and an easy choice for where to start.
CB700 was originally the company Carl Bruno & Sons, operating in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. Bruno eventually sold his company and it ended up with Kaman, which also owned other instrument companies. Kaman shortened the name to CB Drums, and had them made at factories throughout Southeast Asia in the 1960s through 80s (including, for a time, by Pearl drums). I played CB700 drums in middle and high school, and thought they were fine as long as they were maintained.
Today the CB brand is gone. But the drums made in Taiwan are decent-sounding drums for a very affordable price, and they are just starting to get the attention of collectors, mostly people who grew up playing them like me. I figured if I could get in on the ground floor of that notice, I could acquire a few useful drums and call it good, before prices go up.
My first CB700 drum came last year, a wooden shell snare drum that was dirty but in great shape. I paid fifteen bucks for it at a thrift store, brought it home, tuned it up and loved it. It sounds warm and full and I do a lot of brush work on it.
My most recent CB700 arrived this week, a metal shell snare drum that I scored online. It was in much nicer condition and cost more, but still less than a hundred dollars with a padded case and shipping. What’s interesting about this drum is that it was powder coated with aluminum over a steel shell, giving it a lively sound that comes close to that of a much more expensive vintage snare, the Ludwig Acrolite. The Acrolite has a full aluminum shell, so it’s lightweight and very bright and crisp. This CB700 drum sounds like a wet Acrolite, and cost me a fifth of the average price.
I cleaned it up — it didn’t need much — and put it through its paces today. I’m very pleased with the sound and response, and am happy to have it in my very little snare drum collection.
(There is one more CB700 drum on its way to me, a 13” brass shell snare that will make a great piccolo snare and complete the stable of snare drum sounds I want at hand. Stay tuned.)
Some CB700 info — If you have more specifics, please share.
More recent CB700 history: https://killerdrumrigs.com/what-were-cb700-drums/
The Original C. Bruno & Sons, late 19th century: http://ia600205.us.archive.org/5/items/illustratedcatal00cbru/illustratedcatal00cbru.pdf
Here’s my cb700 notes:
ReplyDeleteOrigin: CB was a brand owned by Coast Wholesale Music. Coast Wholesale Music later turned into Kaman, which is the company that owns other popular drum brands like Gretsch, Gibraltar, and Evans.
At first, the drums were known as CB700 drums, but they were later simply named CB drums. There were thousands of them around the world in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and they became many people’s first-ever drum sets.
That’s why they were so popular, and that’s why so many older drummers resonate with the name. If you’re a drummer who was born after 2000, you’ve most likely never heard of CB700 drum kits. Why Did Taylor Hawkins Write CB700 on His Bass Drum? There was a specific Foo Fighters concert where Taylor Hawkins wrote CB700 drums, the brand’s name on the front of his bass drum. It was a big joke, as it was him pretending to use a beginner drum set to play with one of the biggest professional bands in the world. It’s unclear whether Taylor Hawkins wrote it or Dave Grohl, as Dave Grohl was also a drummer who grew up in the time when CB700 beginner kits were extremely popular. It was a nod to everyone in the crowd who also grew up playing on CB700 kits. CB 700S Is actually a re branded TAMA . The early CB'S were great kits . CB drums came about when Chris Burcham had these made in the Tama factory and imported then to the USA . Eventually they were exported from the USA to the UK and the rest of the world . The CB700 Corporation ceased operations in the late 1990s, but the drums continue to be highly sought-after by drummers all over the world.
Thanks so much for this additional info! Appreciated.
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