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2002 Pennsylvania Drum Show by Clay Greene
Well, another October has brought another Pennsylvania Drum Show...this year being the 8th annual show. The 2002 Pennsylvania Drum Show was held Saturday October 26. The venue was again at 'The Peppermint', a night club, in Sunbury, PA. Unlike last year, all vendors were located on the first floor...no attic. This was to the benefit of all as many will recall my coverage of last years show. The only booths that were in a poor location this year were the smaller booths located in the bar area. Our booth location this year could not have been better. We had one of the larger 10x10 booths and we were located directly across from Ludwig. It was my pleasure to meet and chat with Mr. Jim Catalano of Ludwig. This was the first time Jim had attended the PA Drum Show and we were glad to have him. Jim's and Ludwig's support of the vintage drum community has been much appreciated. Ludwig brought along some of their reissue snares for sale as well as catalogs and brochures of the current product line. They also provided several give-aways for the raffle. I was lucky enough to win a Ludwig T-Shirt. The Peppermint was open for vendors from around 7:00AM and Sandy and I arrived in the Excursion (full of drums) around 7:30. We had learned something from last year though about the load-in and load-out...it was a lot of work! I was determined to make this job easier this year. I had gone to Home Depot the week before the show and purchased 9 very large plastic tubs (45"x22"). I lined the tubs with foam and separated the drums with cardboard. I was able to get 5 drums in each container. We purchased two small lightweight dollies at Staples and we were able to load 2 of the large tubs on each dolly at a time (using bungie cords to secure the load). By using two carts were were able to load-in 4 tubs or 20 snare drums at a time. We only needed to make 3 trips and we were done...beautiful! I needed the extra time to mark the prices on the drums before the general public started to funnel in. Many of the drums were still marked with prices from last year. Given the soft economy I felt it would be smart to mark the prices down by $50 to $100. We sold our first drum (a very nice 60's COB Rogers Dynasonic) before the doors even opened. I even had a few minutes to talk with some of the other vendors that we had met at last years show or at Chicago. Billy Jeansonne of Atlanta Vintage Drums was there. Billy hosts the Atlanta drum show and is the publisher of Vintage Drummer magazine. He had been one of our neighbors in the attic last year. Mike Gilbert of Florida was there with his very nice collection of drums. Bill Miller from West Virgina, who was our neighbor at the Chicago Show this year and John Seinar who was also a neighbor of ours at the Chicago show. After a few hellos and how-ya-doins it was time to open up for business. At 9:00 the doors opened and in came the public. The flow was steady but seemed to be a bit lighter than last year. Now, keep in mind that I was up in the attic last year but I did come downstairs around 1:00PM to take pictures and there was a very big crowd. This year the crowd was lighter but at least they were buying. I sold a second 60s COB Dynasonic and a 60s Ludwig Jazzfest BOP rewrap before 11:00AM. I soon realized one concern around 10:00AM as I watched one of the vendors walk by with a beer in his hand. If they are serving alcohol and it's only 10:00AM what are the chances that someone is going to spill beer on a drum(s) by the end of the day...pretty good I thought. Well, it never happened, at least to my knowledge but it will sooner or later if they keep serving alcohol at this show. In my opinion, and many would disagree with me, alcohol should not be served around valuable vintage drums. Sooner or later, it's going to happen. Someone is going to drop a bottle of beer on a $5000 Black Beauty putting a big dent in it and spilling its content all over the rest of the poor guys collection. The vendor is going to expect the person to buy that drum and it's going to get ugly. No one is going to want to pay $5000 for a spilled beer. Wouldn't an apology be enough? I don't think so! Sometime during the morning hours, a fellow came over and wanted to barter on one of my drums: a beautiful 60's Champagne Jazzfest that was almost mint. The price was $399 and he offered something around $300. I told him to come back at the end of the day and if I still had it we would talk. I told him that a lot of people had been eyeing it though. He came back a couple hours later and offered me $300 plus a cute little Silver Sparkle Ludwig 90s birch 3x13 piccolo. I told him I would sell it to him on one condition. He asked, "What's that?". I said, "I will sell it if that fellow who has it in his hands right now doesn't want it!". He looked over and someone was giving it a pretty serious going over. The guy was talking to a friend of his as he looked at the drum and as he talked he was slowly walking towards me. The guy with the $300 and the piccolo said, "Oh no! He's coming this way....he's going to buy it! Darn!". The guy kept taking to his buddy as he would walk another step towards me and then talk more to his friend then look at the drum again before taking yet another step. He couldn't have been torturing this poor guy any more. Finally he made it over to me and asked, "What's your best price on this snare?". I looked at him and said, "Well I guess it's $399 since I've already accepted this fellow's (pointing to the guy with the piccolo) offer on the drum conditional upon you not buying it. The guy just said, "Well, I guess there goes all my bargaining power, huh?". He opened his wallet and handed me $400. The guy with the piccolo was just about to cry. He really wanted that Champagne Jazzfest. Timing is everything and his couldn't have been worse that day. Sandy and I sold two more drums before the end of the show. One was to the famed drummer, Dave Matticks. Dave bought a 70s brass 6.5x14 Supraphonic from me late in the afternoon and I sold an almost mint engraved 90s 5x14 Black Beauty to a fellow from Connecticut. The drum had been engraved by John Aldridge and sported tube lugs. The drum was supposed to be badged as one of the Ludwig re-issues but for some reason never was badged. The drum had previously been owned by a studio drummer who had used it on Michelle Wrights 'Sorry' single. By 3:30PM the show was winding down and we started to prepare for the load-out. We simply had to throw the lids back on our plastic tubs and wheel them out to the truck on our dollies. We were finished in just 15 minutes. We said goodbye to Jim Catalano and were on our way back home after a pretty profitable day. |
