congaplace.com

Old drum I had, my buddy still has it, it is fiberglass over wood, anybody have any idea who might have made this? Culd it be an early prototype of some sort? It looks to me like an old cuban drum was covered in fiberglass and had new hardware put on it. I may buy it back someday from my friend, he doesn't ever play it.


unknown conga by pcastag, on Flickr

I recognize this drum. Didn't we talk about this drum a few years back?

Yes, but I never got any info on it.

Not familiar with the side brackets, and the tuning lugs look as if someone welded a threaded rod to a Clevis. The Rim appears to be that of a King Conga, but be advised that there are some drums out there that were made with copy cat King Conga parts back in the day, so the rim might be one of those. The reason I know this is because I once bought a pair of wooden congas that were in poor shape, but I got them because of what I believed at the time was King Conga hardware ( Rims, Side Brackets, and even tuning lugs ). But upon close inspection when I received them was that the hardware was an inferior copy cat King Conga type hardware. I still have some of the tuning lugs and one rim as I write this. The shell? who knows. At one time in the last thread about this drum I think someone had the nerve to suggests that this might be an early King Conga, but if you are Familiar with Kings like I am, you know that this is a CRAZY NOTION FOR SURE. The original Kings would never have shoddy hardware like this on them.

What do you mean by shoddy? The hardware on this drum is chrome over brass and is super heavy duty. How can you say it is shoddy? Because it's old and not clean? It's very heavy duty, shoddy to me is like those old mexican drums where the side plates bend, this stuff is super strong.

Interestingly enough if you look at the shape of this drum and the shape of the king congas they are very similar. I wonder if the manufacturer got his ideas for shape from fiberglassing over old cuban drums?




unknown conga by pcastag, on Flickr

Thebreeze wrote: At one time in the last thread about this drum I think someone had the nerve to suggests that this might be an early King Conga, but if you are Familiar with Kings like I am, you know that this is a CRAZY NOTION FOR SURE. The original Kings would never have shoddy hardware like this on them.

The nerve of that guy. Dude are you a conga snob ? Really THE NERVE!!!!!!!!!!!

The above photo with the Kings and chequeres is from my parents house. May they rest in peace!

Omelenko1....by saying "May they rest in peace" does that mean you no longer have your Kings? That is a nice group of Kings in that picture. I like the way you used yellow lug protectors for contrast. Did you like the way they sounded? just curious.

I meant that for my parents, they both passed since the photo, also I no longer have the Kings, I sold them. Kings don't project in a Salsa setting with brass, they are good for an acoustic setting.

I am sorry to hear that, may I offer my condolences. I too have lost at least my Dad, and still have my Mom who is 101 years old now so every day she is with me is a blessing from God. They live in our Hearts and we can think of them every day.

p.s... I agree with you about the Kings, great for acoustical setting and also I think for recording studio work.

This might shed some new light

Now this is odd, considering that the image shown is that of a King Conga and the name "Playa Azul" pertains to Mexican Conga drums which in fact look totally different than this.