"Im not a racist."

Always sceptical when someone feels the need to state this immediately before launching into a chauvinistic diatribe such as the tail-end of this.

I fully understand this guy's problems with the junk and scam elements of ebay.

But he seems to have overlooked (as do many of we vintage enthusiasts) that the music instrument market went from a relatively small business aimed at pros and semi-pros to (blame The Beatles) a huge mass-market machine aiming to sell to everyone from the lowest of low entries to the fast burgeoning number of pros.

American (and British, European and Australian) wage levels at the time were comparatively high and the big manufacturers of the day didn't really have the entry level market covered at a reasonably low price - so they all got hammered by the Japanese (Premier and Sonor got nailed just as much by this phenomenon as Ludwig and the other US companies).

And then Japanese labour costs went up and they started to get hammered by the other markets with low labour costs. Somewhere in Japan there is guy just like this right now *****ing about how terrible it is that high quality Japanese manufacturers have had to resort to manufacturing in China and Korea (the latter of which is now starting to be prohibitively expensive). Shortly the Koreans will be complaining about it as well and a little while after that the Chinese will see that their production is heading off-shore to (this is pure speculation) Africa.

It's called economic development and I was pretty sure that was one of the corner stones of the laissez faire capitalism the US prizes so much, right?

And to end my little counter-rant, just because something changes doesn't necessarily mean it is better or worse, it's just different and if you look really closely the better and worse and strangely combined in the new.

Cheers,

David

I looked at Art's eBay list and and had to laugh. He has two items made overseas for sale, a Zildjian cymbal bag and an old Noma drumkit. So much for his rant.

I understand his frustration and disgust, but before the imports came, there was always instruments that weren't high quality. As a kid I had a Kay guitar with the strings about a 1/2 mile off the neck. It was not playable and my Dad wondered why I wouldn't practice with it.

Not all imports are created equally either. In the sixties and seventies, some stuff sold by electronics stores and Montgomery Ward and other department stores wasn't as awful as my Kay guitar. They were never going to be Gibson, Fender, or Ludwig, Rogers, Slingeland and Gretsch but some of these instruments werre at least playable. There has always been a segment of the market that wanted cheap instruments. I don't like imported stuff either but the quality of some of them is excellent as anyone who owns a higher end imported drum kit knows. I had two PDP kits for awhile and went right back to older Luddies.

The real question is can America return to the days where we make the entire product here? Remember that the American drum companies, DW, Ludwig (others?) are not 100% American made. They use imported hardware. Not just stands and pedals, rims, lugs, rods, washers, all of it. It cost too much to produce high quality chrome plated stuff, even if you had cheap labor it would cost more to produce here. At least, if we purchase Ludwig and DW we are supporting American workers who make the shells and do the final assembly and QC. Would powder coating hardware cut costs enough so these companies could produce their own hardware?

I'm sure these questions have been raised before on various drum forums, sorry to bore anyone.

Matt

If this guy is as old as I think he is, that would explain it. I have dealt with plenty of old timers and they all end up ****ed off!

Why? because of regrets and he has plenty of them. If he was retiring, he must not have planned well enough to retire on some remote island in the Bahamas..

His American dream did not pan out and the regret of how he managed his life and business shows in his near end of life statement..

If he made millions importing the drums in to the country, then it would have been a different story.

I speak from experience of running a small business and working hard to end up with little... Although I'm not as old as he probably is, my regrets will come later.

David

when I click on Jim's ebay link it says "listing removed" I guess he sold his stuff. Anything intresting?

I turned old Art in for keyword spamming... that kind of crap wears me out!

If he wants to rant.. I guess he could come here to rant, ebay is not a forum.

There's my little rant!:mad:

I gather from the comments that Art's ebay listing was just a rant about something. We all have horror stories. I'm glad ebay deleted his rant. If they allowed that type of crap on ebay, that would take up a lot of space. They have a Rant & Rave site on craigslist, maybe he should go there

Me too. I understand the guy's concern, but hey, welcome to the global economy. And as you said, eBay is not a forum - irrelevant listings are sludge for those who are actually serious about buying stuff.