Nut Box
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E-mail from Dave Seville
I have just had an e-mail from Dave Seville. For anyone reading this who has not read Rob Cook’s “Rogers Book”, Dave is the bloke who wrote the English Rogers section.
How I came to get an e-mail from Dave is that when I first read the book last year I noticed that Dave published a bi-monthly newsletter entitled “The Old Drummers Club” (my wife calls it “The Sad Old Drummers Club” but as I keep telling her, if all she has to worry about is my addiction to drums then she should count herself lucky. But enough of my domestic troubles). So I subscribed. The ODC is no glossy mag., but a few printed pages of articles about old drums and old drummers mainly focusing on the UK and some for sales and wants.
Recently I sent Dave a request to include a wanted ad. as I would like to try and find some English Rogers catalogues. He said OK and asked if I knew about DrumArchieve.com. So, I replied and told him about the ROF and the new English section. A few days later the following arrived………………….
"Thanks for this interesting stuff. When I wrote the bit for the Rogers Book, I used what materials and knowledge I had at the time - mainly drawn from catalogues. I understand the limitations of this approach but it was (still is) a matter of doing what ya can. If it provokes responses, then at least a dialogue has begun which may improve the overall picture. I was loaned a Rogers catalog (from which that picture was taken of the set with the Ajax stands) and this was accompanied by a price list which had a 1961 date on it. American drums started to appear in quantities in the UK in the very early 1960's when the Arbiter company signed a distribution deal with Ludwig, followed quickly by Rose morris (w/Slingerland). I think the Boosey & Hawkes deal with Rogers was a reaction to this 'threat' to sales of UK drums. Everybody had always wanted USA drums and suddenly they could get them easily (although expensively). The idea to make 'American' drums in the UK was a clever move because it avoided transportation costs, and very high import duties. In a way, it is surprising they were not even more successful. How good they were, is another discussion and rather subjective. I still think that American drums were so popular because the high-quality Remo weather King plastic heads produced a superior sound (more reliably) than UK drums with calf heads or the thin, crap Everplay / Head Master UK-made plastic types. If you could've put a set of Remo's on an Ajax set I have no doubt that the results would have been great. The UK Rogers drums had either calf or Everplays (or near equivalents) so didn't give that 'American sound' despite all the fancy Swivo fittings.
I think that the great majority of Rogers UK components were made in the UK (for tax and cost related reasons). I don't know if you have ever tried this but - American and UK Swivomatic components are NOT compatible. I can't remember which way round it is, but some Swivo receivers will not lock up on some hex rods. This is because the standard stock steel hex-rod sizes (USA/ UK) are slightly different. As i am sure you know, UK-made Swivo collets are stamped with UK patent and registration numbers (plus Made in England). Some Swivo and Knobby plates are stamped 'Rogers' and some Swiv-o-Matic. So, there is definitive evidence that lots of these parts were made in the UK. The UK Rogers hoops are deeper and a slightly different profile to the American equivalent. The only thing that puzzles me is that every Snare Strainer i have ever seen says 'USA' on it although even some of these LOOK (somehow) to be different. I suppose my problem is that i have not owned too many rogers drums of either type, and not at the same time, so i have never done any actual side-by-side comparisons. I'll leave that to you guys.
Re the Tiger Stripe set - that set was on view at the Birmingham Drum Show a couple of years back - I was offered it previously but would have sworn it was recovered judging from the photos i was sent. Maybe it wasn't. It was in very good condition and the pattern of the covering did not resemble any of the finishes being used in the 60's. This is just my opinion - i don't want to cast any aspersions.
Good luck to the Rogers forum - and don't take anything I ever wrote as the gospel truth!
Cheers
Dave Seville"
First thing to say is that Dave didn’t have to take the time and trouble to do this and I am very grateful that he did. Second there is some great stuff here.
Great insight into the historical backdrop to the Rogers/Ajax deal. From Dave’s explanation I think it is crystal clear how it would have come about.
I don’t know if you guys ever got Everplay heads in the US, but they were not good. I had a full set of Evans hydrolics on my English Rogers and they sounded great.
He believes that shipping of parts would have been kept to a minimum, which makes perfect sense.
Gary and Tomikat and Jack, and all you other Tiger Stripe fans, I am sure he is wrong about the it being a rewrap. 
---
"You have to become the change you want to see in the World". - Mahatma Gandhi.
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3/2/2008, 1:54 pm
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tommykat1
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
Nutbox, I really appreciate your sharing this info from Dave Seville. Very glad that you are heading up the English front! I hope that Dave spends some time here.
Would like to know definitively about the tiger stripe. One thing that has me wondering about whether it's recovered or not is that it is SO pretty, I'm surprised we haven't seen more around.
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3/2/2008, 2:02 pm
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musicbybj
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
Thanks Nut Box, this is great stuff and really appreciated. I have seen photos somewhere of the Tiger Stripe finish some years back.
I'm sure glad someone suggested the English Rogers Forum. Very interesting and you other blokes from "over there" feel free to jump on in.
Jack
--- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another" Buddha
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3/2/2008, 2:48 pm
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Gary N
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
Thanks for sharing that. If the Tiger sparkle swirl is a rewrap then I'm on the mad crazy hunt for some NOS left over sheets. Great forum section/thread!
Peace, Gary
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3/2/2008, 6:46 pm
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Nut Box
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
More stuff from Dave: (I did check that Dave did not mind me publishing him in this way)
Hi Dave
I don’t want to take up your time and please don’t feel that you have to reply to this e-mail but I just wanted to say thanks for letting me use your e-mail.
You may be concerned that what you say may be taken as gospel, but it seems to me that there isn’t anyone else out there that knows any more than you. I find it surprising that so little appears to be known about English Rogers, or maybe it just isn’t available on the net. Your comments on the historical backdrop to the Rogers/Ajax deal I found particularly useful.
About nine months ago I returned to being interested in drums again after a long layoff of about 25 years. In the late 70s I owned two English Rogers kits and so it is those that I am drawn back to. I’m not yet ready to “play out” as they say in the US, I have too many family and other commitments.
I find it amusing that when I now do a search on “English Rogers” it brings up results which include what I have said on various forums, and I do not consider myself any kind of expert. English Rogers seem to be regarded as a historical oddity rather than appreciated in their own right. It is however, interesting how often drummers who find themselves owning English Rogers, often it seems buying a kit mistaking it for the US product, remark on how great the bass drum is, or how great the floor tom is, and yet they would still prefer a US kit.
So far I have found myself drums to rewrap to make myself a “playing kit”, including a 20,12,13,16, and a dynasonic, and lacquered brass snare drums, all with bread and butter lugs. I also have a 20,12,16 Mardi Gras on the way which if the photos are to be believed looks in excellent condition. I have attached a photo. I may look into showing it at Birmingham if it is as good as it looks.
Thanks again
Alan
Hello Alan,
This mardi gras set look great.
One thing I never could work out was why the hell Ajax / B&H persevered with the pressed lugs (bread and butter) when the folks at Rogers USA could have told them they were a recipe for disaster. While the cost of manufacture is very low compared with a die-cast lug, no-one has yet come up with a design strong enough to take the strain of constant high tension. I have lost count of the number of B&B lugs I have seen cracked. They switched to the die casts for Rogers UK of course but then went back to the pressed lugs for the Ajax Nu-Sound drums with similar results. Leedy in the 20's and WFL in the 30's produced pressed lugs, all with the same outcome. The Rogers UK B&B lugs were produced at about the same time that Rogers USA abandoned the idea!
I had a quick look at Rogers UK on the net - bugger all, like you say. So maybe i am the world's leading authority after all. That stuff about Ivor Arbiter being involved in Rogers UK is rubbish. The drums produced by Dallas Arbiter's Shoeburyness facility (before Hayman) were Carlton. Dallas had produced Carlton drums since 1935. Arbiter took over Dallas (a long established UK music distribution firm) and inherited the factory in the deal.
All you need now is Mardi gras snare drum!
Cheers dave S
Hi Dave,
Ref. the Mardi Gras snare drum, please don't encourage me, my addiction is bad enough already. Very little chance of finding a Mardi snare I think, at least in the short term. As I say I have found an English dynasonic and refurbed a lacquered brass snare (links to photos before and after below).
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb77/nutbox/IMG_21891.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb77/nutbox/DSCN1391.jpg
I am thinking that the Mardi will look good with the gold of the brass snare. The kit is on its way from New York. How ironic is that? How it ended up in the US I have no idea. I managed to trace it back a little on Ebay, and found that it was in San Diego last summer, where it sold for $2000 to a buyer in Chicago, who then sold it on to my seller in New York for about $800 I think, but the Chicago seller would not ship it overseas so at that time I could not bid. Then my seller put it up for sale again but this time was prepared to ship internationally, and I got it for $1000, so that he covered his outlay including the amount he had paid to ship from Chicago to NY (I think he probably bought it out of curiosity, and he said how great the bass drum was). It arrived in the UK yesterday so I expect it any time. I figure that there can't be many kits left like this in this kind of condition, and I did not want to regret not getting it when it was available (and anyway my wife said it was OK). It does have a few issues but then it is 45 years old.
The bread and butter lugs for me are a nostalgia thing. They don't need to be great at holding tension cos I am not likely to play my kit every night for a living. In the years that I had my old kits I never managed to crack any that were not already cracked.
I think we have established that you are the World's leading living authority on English Rogers and I am the other bloke who is interested! And I think that is about it. Most sellers of these kits have no idea of what they are selling. Most buyers would prefer a US Rogers. These kits do sell though, so they go somewhere. But obviously not to the talking types.
Can I ask you a question? English Rogers shells are usually 3-ply birch with birch re'rings. I have owned two wood shell snare drums (have one now) which were 3-ply beech with birch re'rings (I found the birch shell version to be far superior). I also have a 13x9 tom which would have originally had B&B lugs and is undoubtedly English Rogers but it is beech with beech re'rings. Any idea what was going on here? Why such difference in the shells?
Cheers
Alan
Hello Alan,
I am glad I am not the guy in San Diego. (I think he meant Chicago).
I am useless at woods - so it's difficult for me to comment.
I know this much, though - before about 1988, nobody gave a damn what wood a drum was made out of. There was no talk about maple being brighter-sounding than mahogany (etc, etc). The drum companies chose their woods on the basis of consistent local supply, malleability and cost much more than any considerations of sound characteristics. Many companies farmed out shell-making to specialist wood-working companies and probably never bothered about what wood was used, as long as the supply was regular and cost-effective.
I think B&H had their own shell-making facility - there are grainy photographs in the Ajax Year books of antiquated factories moulding and finishing shells. The Ajax / Edgware & Stratford shells of the mid-60's were all three ply with re-rings of similar profile and size as Premiers. The wood was a darker colour, though. not as dark as mahogany. I've really no idea what it was. I can do maple, mahogany and sometimes birch but that's about it. I understand that UK manufacturers also used beech, ash and sycamore but I wouldn't know one if it starred me in the face.
Earlier (50's) Ajax shells were incredibly thin (2-ply?) with very skinny, almost triangular re-rings of a lighter coloured wood (ash?). I have seen many cross-grained B&H shells (where the grain runs from bearing edge to bearing edge). Ajax Nu-sound shells were like that and I seem to recall that some of the Rogers UK drums I have had were similar. But I never did see a Rogers with the 50's style Ajax shells. By the time the Rogers came into production, I think they had standardised them all to the same pattern, but the woods could have varied if supply was difficult. They would not have closed the plant down just because there was a scarcity of birch - they would've used an alternative.
Cheers
Dave S
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"You have to become the change you want to see in the World". - Mahatma Gandhi.
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3/16/2008, 10:59 am
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musicbybj
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
Fantastic Nut Box! You are making the English connection so very interesting. Looking forward to seeing those English Mardi Gras.
Jack
--- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another" Buddha
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3/16/2008, 11:20 am
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tommykat1
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
Nutbox, great that you have a dialog going with Dave Seville. Perhaps he'd like to join our community?
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3/16/2008, 10:03 pm
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rogerwdowns
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Re: E-mail from Dave Seville
Very interesting! Thanks for posting all this info.
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3/26/2008, 7:42 pm
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