Vistalite Valuations

by Andy Youell

The market for Vistalites has exploded in the past few years and the price has risen significantly - these are highly collectable drums. I receive many emails from drummers asking for valuations and I'm usually happy to respond. There are a number of main factors that determine the value of Vistalites:

Rarity

From a collectors point of view, rarity is everything. Colour is a major factor - clear and blue are the most common - amber and red less so - green and yellow are the rarest. Black, white and smoke were late additions to the Vistalite line, and none of them were huge sellers. Despite their rarity, they tend not to command top prices since they look pretty similar to regular drums.

The rainbow drums are generally rarer than the single-colour equivalents - vertical bar, 2 band swirl and spiral are probably the rarest patterns. Any combination of colours were available and, although there are many common combinations out there, there are a number of truly 'one-off' kits.

Some kits were sold in a 'Jellybean' style with each drum a different colour. These are rare and highly desirable, though some folks have built up Jellybean kits by buying individual drums on the second hand market. A true Jellybean (with serial numbers in the same range - they are never perfectly consecutive) is a valuable kit.

The Tivoli is probably the rarest of all Vistalites - a kit with working lights is rarer still. Expect to pay many thousands...

Condition

Cracks are the major problem with the acrylic shells and once a shell has cracked, the damage will always be visible to some extent, even if the crack is glued and stabilised. Light rubs and scratches are less of a problem since they can be polished out.

Be wary of any Vistalite kit that is missing the front head/hoop from the bass drum. Whilst relatively easy to replace, removing the front head allows the shell to flex under the weight of the mounted toms and many bass shells have cracked as a result. Concert toms are also far more prone to cracking given the lack of protection on the lower edge of the shell.

Missing pieces are a pain, but there are enough vintage drum dealers out there to make most items easily obtainable. The plastic inserts behind the lugs and the 3-hold damper plates were both specific to the Vistalite line so these can be a bit more tricky to get hold of.

Sizes and Configuration

Big kits and rare sizes are the most sought after - bass drums smaller or larger than 22/24 inches - 15 inch rack toms - 20 inch floor toms. Concert toms were very popular in the 1970s though seem to be out of fashion now. A few Vistalites were produced in power sizes (extra deep bass and toms) though this was at the very end of the run.

The 'Bonham' configuration is very collectable - but remember folks - the Bonham kit had a 26 inch bass drum with rail tom mount and 14, 16 & 18 toms - the snare was a steel 402, not a Vistalite.

The other big issue with Vistalite kits is the presence of a matching snare. Many Vistalite kits were sold with a steel snare drum - and many collectors buy up Vistalite snare drums. The result of these two factors is that there are as many Vistalite kits without a matching snare as there are with one. You can knock almost half the value off a standard 5-piece kit if it doesn't have the matching snare.

The market

The market for Vistalites is bouyant and there are many places you can pick up a kit. There are a number of individual dealers operating on the web in addition to the more traditional drum store. Ebay is probably the biggest market - do a search on "vistalite" from the music section (don't try it from the top level menu - you gen inundated with bicycle lights called 'vistalite'). Check out the closing prices of recently completed Vistalite auctions to see what prices drums are fetching.

If you have any comments, queries or suggestions, feel free to send me mail.