Retirement is Good.. and allows me to spend so much more quality time on the things I really enjoy doing. One of which is vintage snare drum restorations!
In 1926, the Leedy Drum Company was first to introduce Pyralin, a nitrocellulose 'plastic' finish on its drum offerings. The first two colours introduced were Sparkling Gold, and the more popular White Marine Pearl. Within two years, competitors Ludwig & Ludwig and Slingerland had adopted this significant upgrade for their own drums.
Leedy was also the first of the American drum companies to depart from standardized industry tube lugs when they debuted the first self-aligning lug. This innovation featured a unique internal swivel insert that allowed free movement of each tension rod. This groundbreaking concept fundamentally eliminated the common issue of thread binding and stripped casings.
Complementing this structural upgrade, Leedy also introduced the double-flanged rim, integrating a secondary fold which further enabled their ‘floating head’ principle. Together, these innovations offered drummers of the day unprecedented tuning consistency, minimized metal fatigue, while establishing new engineering benchmarks across later renowned Leedy flagship lines.
This circa 1926 Leedy 5 X 14 Professional model, had been on my vintage snare drum bucket list for the better part of twenty years and I recently completed its restoration after acquiring it in 2024, marking this as a kind of centennial project. That Sparkling Gold finish is in amazingly pristine condition, given that it's just turning 100 this year!
I'm happy to say this classic snare drum is now ready to beat on for many future generations, and for the time being has a special place in my own collection.