In the MIJ world there is a tendency to lump all the drums together. Some of it is from the old myths of them being made in the same factory or a shared factory, but in reality the connections between companies was very small, even the smallest common screw seem to be a little different. This even extends to the wraps, where similar, but not the same, seems to be the rule.

The early days of the stencil brand drums were all about competing with the American brands. Prior to rock music being the driving force in drum manufacturing, the jazz guyswere leading the way, with their first real rock star being Gene Krupa. Gene’s iconic kits throughout his life were the White Marine Pearl Slingerlands. This color wrap became the unofficial wrap of jazz players everywhere, especially Cozy Cole, Louie Bellson, and Buddy Rich.

The differences in the wraps are less about the initial color, because when the drums were new, they were all very close to pure white, so the things that we’ll look at are size of the chips (I made up this term), the depth, and the amount of color change. Our American drum company references will be 60’s Rogers and Slingerland. Note that Gretsch leaned towards Rogers and Ludwig had two types, one like Rogers and the other with horizontal streaks, unlike anything else, Japanese or American. All these drums were photographed with the same lighting and camera with the same edits.

This Gracy snare which is badged Capitol, is a high contrasting wrap that yellows with depth. The chip size is similar to Rogers. This is believed to be a later run for Gracy so late 60’s to early 70’s.

The Hoshino made Stewart displays the closest to the creamy white pearl of Slingerland. The overall subtle look mixed with the Slingerland Beavertail inspired lugs and oval badge could fool an old jazz guy at twenty feet! The Pearl has the nice big chips and yellows evenly and maintains a middle of the road contrast. The drum itself is from 1965-66. They did change their wraps after this model going more in the Rogers directions.

Here is an unbadged Sakae center lug rack tom. This drum probably didn’t spend too much time in bright lights with a minimum of yellowing. Overall the wrap looks strongly like Rogers in every way. This drum is probably the rarest of the bunch.

The last one is a Star badged Star from the early to mid 60’s. This is about the heaviest yellowing I have seen on a white pearl wrap. It still maintains a high contrast wrap with an almost golden feel.

This is a comparison pallet with the reference swatches and also the modern wrap sold on eBay from china. Side by side you can easily see all of the variety between all the manufacturers from 50 years ago. I personally believe that white pearl is the most diverse of any drum wrap and the most sensitive to light.

Back in 2016 I visited the Rhythm Discovery Center in Indianapolis. In the lobby they had on display a Gene Krupa and a Buddy Rich kit side by side. Some of the kits in the collection were era correct tributes, some were the actual kits. Well worth the visit for a drum history fan!