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Vintage Olympic Drums - 1960's

John Kaywood, a former Premier employee who worked with the Beverley line, remembers Chas E. Foote's drum shop in London dealt with the Olympic literature as Premier looked down on its budget range. Cost savings could be made by using old artwork and pictures, so this could explain why old stuff was used for years. This practise seems quite common to almost all drum manufacturers back in the 60's and 70's.

John also mentioned that the Olympic line did sell well and drummers who could not afford a nice new Premier set bought an Olympic. They were popular with shopping catalogues and I suspect a great many were sold at Christmas time. Some kits left the factory without badges to be renamed by other companies. The Rosseti name is linked with this and there are mentions of Rosseti during the 70's with both the Olympic line and Hamma drums which were made by Premier. Hamma drums were badged Rosseti/EMI.

The Red Silk Pearl kit pictured on the Kits page was acquired without badges and the above could maybe explain why. I have now sourced badges for this kit and they have been fitted.

	Kit No. 60 & 62. Early 1960's		Kit No. 64 & 65. Early 1960's
	Early 60's snares with the Discus model now 4 inches deep as apposed to being 3.5 inch deep previously. No badge was fitted to this drum as the name was stamped on the hoop.		Snares from the 1967 catalogue show the first appearance of the 1005 metal shell drum. Also in the line up were 1001 14x4  8 lug wood and the 1003 14x6.5 8 lug wood shell.
	Early 1960's snare drums with the Discus shown with badge!! Note how the same photos were used from other catalogues to save costs		Zyn cymbal, brushes and sticks
	Single and double headed Tom Toms - early 1960's		Single and double headed Tom Toms- 1966 to 1967
	1965 American catalogue page.		The basic Europa twin tom holder of the early 70's.
	Bass drum anchor to stop that creeping.		Floor tom legs receive a single bend from 1967.
	Keep those drums safe in these lovely soft bags.		Everplay heads the best in the world, maybe at the time.
	Two types of tom holder available in the 60's, neither all that strong.		Fitted and separate spurs. Most drums were supplied with separate spurs but fitted ones could added at no extra cost.
	Late 1960's Twin Europa		1967 bass drums available in 18,20,22,and 24 x12 inch depth and 20 and 22x 14 special order.
	1960's Hi-hat pedal with cast foot plate		1960's Bass drum pedals, using the same 1950's model 1284.
Starting with the 1967 catalogue colour photographs were being used, however pages listing single drums, hardware and accessories etc were still in black and white. It should be noted that Olympic shells were the same as Premier built with birch ply and beechwood reinforcing hoops. Probably shells with knots and slight blemishes would have gone to the Olympic production line. Try and find a budget kit nowadays with birch shells.....Eh..No !
	Olympic. The best drums in the world.......Probably		Why would you want to buy anything else?
	Olympic 60 kit.  1966~67.  Shown in Red Sparkle finish		Olympic 62 kit.  1966~67.  Shown in Silver Sparkle finish
	Olympic 64 kit.  1966~67.  Shown in Red Silk Pearl finish		Olympic 65 kit.  1966~67.  Shown in Blue Silk Pearl finish. This kit could be ordered with either an 18, 20 or 22 inch bass drum and 14 inch floor tom instead of the 16.
	Believe this to be same kit as other pic but photographed at different location		Silver Sparkle 4 piece which has discoloured to what is sometimes known as Ginger-Ale Sparkle. This seem to be quite common to old Silver Sparkle from most manufacturers
	Remo 12 inch Pre-International product number, these heads fit Olympic and Premier drums manufactured prior to 1968, pre-International size		This is code number for your 16 inch Pre-International sized tom tom.