British website Dig, founded by Helen Hall, a former auctioneer and vice president at Christie's Auction House and offering high quality rock and roll memorabilia, has discovered one of Ringo Starr's drum cases used to carry his drums with the Beatles.
The case is a black hardshell drum case manufactured by The House Of Quality, Chicago, Illinois. It is stenciled in two places Ringo Starr, The Beatles and was used by Ringo to carry the tom tom used with his 1967 Ludwig Hollywood drum kit and his Ludwig oyster black pearl kits.
The case has a freight label attached that is signed by Ringo himself. Extensive research on the labels on the case was carried out. One of them has a date that nails it down to being used to travel to New York for George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh in 1971. This case was certainly used in 1968, around the time of recording the White Album in Abbey Road Studios, and possibly earlier in the Beatles' career too.
Ringo Starr gave this case to his drum technician, Rick Faucher, when he was living in Los Angeles in 1975 following the break-up of the Beatles. Ringo apparently asked Faucher to paint over the stencils on the case as it caused too much commotion in airports whenever he traveled with them. Ringo never took the cases back from Rick and later signed the accompanying note to acknowledge that he had given the case to his drum tech.
Berst of all? It's for sale! Just contact Dig for further details. Enjoy.
