Pearl Professional DLX Series

Hi everyone,

My dad has a Pearl professional DLX series 5-piece kit, he wants to sell it but has no idea what its worth - he believes its about 20yrs old, drums are in pretty good condition apart from a couple minor scratches, comes with full set of drum bags for gigging, throne and stands but the cymbals have already been sold.

Can anyone please help me out with what sort of price this should fetch? I was thinking around $800-1000 but if im way off please let me know!

Cheers

Simon

DLX 7500 Series (lacquered finish) were introduced in 1984 and featured 7 ply shells: birch (outside), mahogany (middle), and lamin (inside). Priced affordably, they nevertheless featured high-end components such as double braced hardware, SuperHoops, and Pinstripe heads. In 1985, a five-piece DX kit with 22” bass drum and hardware listed for $1650.
In 1986, the DX/DLX shared the spotlight with a similar but lower priced series, the WX/WLX World Series. In 1987, the DX/DLX were discontinued and replaced by the WX/WLX (I owned a WLX back in the day)

From 1997 to 1998, the DLX Prestige Session (lacquer finishes) made a brief “comeback” and featured 7 ply shells: maple (outside), mahogany (middle), and maple (inside).

So if the drums look like maple, you are looking at the later incarnation of DLX. Very thick shells for ROCKIN. Pearl's current 6ply is 7.5mm, so one more ply is ....well don't make me do math They will be loud and cold and would require some thicker heads for low end. I wouldn't pay over 800.00. For 1k you can get a newer kit with more versatility.
Cheers!

I owned a Pearl DX (i.e. the covered version of the DLX) around 1988 / 89 and it did sound OK, but I believe that today there are sets around USD 1'000 that definitely sound better and have a wider tonal spectrum than the DLX / DX (I fully agree with illustrator X).

Nevertheless, those kits were really successful and many top players adopted them (e.g. Phil Collins).

I guess you already surfed the net, but here are some links regarding the DLX for others who could be interested (the second one is particularly intriguing):

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/pearl_drumsets_1983-3.htm
http://www.graham-collins.com/drummer/index.php/drum-kits/phil-collins-pearl-dlx
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews105341.html