Vintage Chinese tack head tom toms
Hello friends, Samm Bennett here. With their painted drum heads, the old Chinese tack head tom toms have great visual interest for me, and historical interest as well: this type of drum was a standard feature of the early drum kits of the 1920s, 1930s and sometimes even into the early 1940s. The first photos here (resting on my tatami floor) are drums from my personal collection, followed by photos of many others I've found here and there on the net, often at auction sites. Enjoy!
Below: here are the two sides of the drum seen just above, but with a better view of the mounting system that was attached for use in the old drum kits of the 1920s and 30s.
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The three photos directly below are from a page at the Rhythm Discovery Center, which has some info on Chinese tom toms.
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The next three pictures below, all from the wonderful Olympic Drums site, show various Chinese tom toms the way they were mounted on the old bass drums in the drum kits of the 1920s and 1930s.
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Above: a rather unusual design, especially the border of flowers
In the three photos below we see a Chinese tom tom that was being offered for sale at an auction site. Looks like someone might've "touched up" the paint job on the heads a wee bit. What's interesting is that here we see how the drum company Ludwig affixed its own logo to the drum they imported from China...
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Someone selling this old drum on eBay thoughtfully included quite a few photos, republished below. First, the entire drum, both sides:
And now some details:
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Note the Ludwig logo applied to one of the drums in the photo above.