In honor of the new Slingerland Limited Edition Radio King snares and my review of those particular snares in this issue, I wanted to do something special for “Catalog Corner” this month.
This is one of my favorite Slingerland catalogs for a few reasons. Not only because it took me years to find, and the condition is near mint. It’s also the first time Gene Krupa appears on the cover, which he would go on to grace for another near 40 years! One of the other reasons is that it’s the first time Radio King snare drums and the name Radio King appears in a Slingerland catalog. It’s also the first time, due to Gene’s influence and genius that you see the basis for what we call “a standard drum set-up” today, on the cover of the issue. All the sets pictured inside are still set up in the old school variety making this cover highly significant.
This 1936 Slingerland catalog also has some of the most glorious color palettes of drum sets ever displayed between its pages. The center fold out is spectacular as well, showing the finest available drum finishes in all their grandeur.
This catalog comes in the adopted size of the Slingerland catalogs, 5.5” x 8.5” until after WWII. The first catalog after the war was in 1947. It started the standard catalog size that most people are familiar with today, 8.5” x 11”. This larger format size ran until the last catalog was issued by the Slingerland company until it was sold off, and beyond.
I hope you enjoyed this dive into our wonderful world of drums past. As always, thank you for reading my columns and for your support and feedback. If you have a particular vintage drum catalog you would like to see me highlight here, please let me know in the comments.
Stay tuned…
Thank you,
Edward Tucker
Studio 3T