As a matter of fact, I believe Tama began having trouble finding super clean birch (old growth Japanese birch) for their lacquered Superstar finishes and just threw in the towel. These were essentially Superstar shells with outer plies that were cosmetically unappealing. This is true across all the Tama lines, even the higher end wrapped, birch Granstars. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “custom refinished”, previously wrapped drums that look like absolute hell due to the varying colors, dark streaks and imperfections of the laminate plies lurking beneath the wrap.

They were mahogany, wrapped and Zolacoated on the interiors to hide the boring straight grain and nasty color variations in the mahogany luan plies (although Tama claimed the Zolacoat was for “moisture resistance”). A perfect example would be the vintage Imperialstars. My golden rule is…if its wrapped…re-wrap it or leave it as is. Bottom line on ANY wrapped drum of any make or variety…they’re wrapped for a reason…to hide ugly ass wood plies underneath! The wrap allows the manufacturer to use less than cosmetically perfect laminates in their shell construction.

Vintage tama snare drum parts