Legend Drums...did a search..didnt come up with much.

blastbeatkeeper

blastbeatkeeper

Senior Member
Hello, everyone. As the title suggests, I did a search on Legend drums, but didnt find too much. Theres a nice 5 piece kit at my local shop Im thinking of grabbing. 10x9, 12x10 rack toms 14x14 and 16x16 floors and 22x18 bass with 2.3 Super Hoops and maple shells all the way around in a natural finish. I love them. The 2 up, 2 down config, as well as the natural maple finish. I have an extra 200 bills floating around, and I want to put a down payment on them. The shop wants 649.00 for them.
Now, being that they are a defunct company(one thing I did find out through the search), if anything breaks, am I up poo crick with no paddle? And secondly, are they worth the money? I definitely want to go to the shop and mess around with them before I dropped the cash, but I just wanted to get some advice from the pros here. Btw, this would be a second kit to my Yammie Stage Custom 7 piece double bass birch kit. Unless for some reason I decided to trade the Yammies in towards these....which I am mulling over. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Those are a very nice pro level kit made back in the 90's by Kaman, they have all maple keller shells and the finishes were done in the ovations guitar factory. They were at the same price point as other high end companies such as GMS. great souding kit, 649 is a good price.
PC
 
They are very nice drums. It largely depends on what shape they are in. If they are in great shape, that is a good price. Good luck. Peace and goodwill.
 
blastbeatkeeper said:
Hello, everyone. As the title suggests, I did a search on Legend drums, but didnt find too much. Theres a nice 5 piece kit at my local shop Im thinking of grabbing. 10x9, 12x10 rack toms 14x14 and 16x16 floors and 22x18 bass with 2.3 Super Hoops and maple shells all the way around in a natural finish. I love them. The 2 up, 2 down config, as well as the natural maple finish. I have an extra 200 bills floating around, and I want to put a down payment on them. The shop wants 649.00 for them.
Now, being that they are a defunct company(one thing I did find out through the search), if anything breaks, am I up poo crick with no paddle? And secondly, are they worth the money? I definitely want to go to the shop and mess around with them before I dropped the cash, but I just wanted to get some advice from the pros here. Btw, this would be a second kit to my Yammie Stage Custom 7 piece double bass birch kit. Unless for some reason I decided to trade the Yammies in towards these....which I am mulling over. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
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These were considered hi end drums in their day, build quality is excellent. Mid 90's and yes KAMAN was behind it. The 22x18 bass drum alone retailed for $1,410.50 the 12 tom $475.50 if it has a mount, they offered them w/o tom mounts for the RIMS crowd.

If you can get the set for $600 you'll have scored, $650 is a great price.
 
Kaman Music was (is) the largest musical distribution companies in the USA (maybe the world).

They are the parent company of Gibralter hardware, Toca percussion, and a host of others, as well as a 3rd party distributor for tons of brand they didn't own. They bought out LP some years back.

But they didn't have a drum line. So they attempted to make their own drum line, and called it Legend. Yes, they were maple shells, using Keller made shells, adding their own lugs. Despite the enormous amount of money behind the company, and getting studio legend Harvey Mason as an endorser, for whatever reason, Legend didn't create many sales.

Kaman then entered into an agreement to distribute and license Gretch drums, which gave Kaman a huge IN in the drum market, without having to start a brand from scratch, which essentially meant Legend would never be making a come back.

The parent company of Kamam music was actually an aerospace company, and why they sold music instruments on the side. A few years ago, Kaman sold off Kaman Music to Fender, who operate it as KMS music (which stands for Kaman Music Service if ), so as to avoid too much confusion.

Legend drums were good hi-end quality, but nothing really separated them from the other companies making maple shelled drums. As far as parts, good luck. Gibralter might have something that fits the hole pattern, but any actual Legend parts would be near impossible to find.

$649 is certainly a steal for a kit of that quality. As long as you realize you'll never find add ons for it.
 
Despite the enormous amount of money behind the company, and getting studio legend Harvey Mason as an endorser, for whatever reason, Legend didn't create many sales.


They were just tooo expensive compared to other drums of the day and no company mystique, nothing to put them over.
 
Les Ismore said:
They were just tooo expensive compared to other drums of the day and no company mystique, nothing to put them over.
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I don't recall them being any more than a comparable DW or GMS or such.

But I agree there was no mystique to justify the price. Particularly since Kaman had done well selling Gibraltar hardware as high quality but lower priced alternative to Tama, Pearl, etc hardware.

Trying to pair that with Legend that was not a lower price alternative was essentially trying to go in two different directions as once.

And that they didn't offer different levels of Legend, make it an all or nothing brand. Where as when Kaman took over Gretch, the first thing they did was expand the brand name to numerous price points with different models to appeal to a much wider range of buyers.
 
And that they didn't offer different levels of Legend, make it an all or nothing brand.

To the least degree they did, which was another turn off. They had 8 lacquer finishes which were their top of the line/price and a finished called 'Black Rock' a textured paint, the cheaper one, the difference was only about $4-500 for a kit. So not much incentive for drummers to jump on LEGEND.

$650 for the OP's possible buy is a good deal tho.
 
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