Jonathan Moffett's Immortal kit | $108,000

Every so often a piece of gear comes up for sale that is less a drum kit than a museum exhibit. This is one of those.

Jonathan “Sugarfoot” Moffett is selling the 13-piece DW kit he played on Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour — and he has hand-signed every single piece of it.

What is actually for sale

Look at it. Three bass drums, a bank of toms wide enough to need its own postcode, and gold glass sparkle on every shell.

The listing is specific, and worth reading twice: the 13 drums are the sale. The rack, cymbals, cases and hardware in the photo are not included. You are buying shells — stage-played, signed shells, but shells.

It sits on the Moffett Store at $108,000, down from $150,000. No auction, no closing date, no countdown clock — a straight listing, there until somebody buys it. Prices and availability do move on these, so check before you get your hopes up.

Who is Sugarfoot?

If the name is new to you: Moffett is about as close to Michael Jackson’s drum chair as anybody ever got.

He came up with the Jacksons on the Destiny, Triumph and Victory tours and stayed in Michael’s touring band across the Bad, Dangerous and HIStory eras — some thirty years of first-call work. In between he played for Madonna, Elton John, George Michael and Janet Jackson.

Immortal was Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson show, an arena production built round the catalogue that toured from 2011 and became the highest-grossing tribute show ever staged. Moffett played it. This is the kit he played it on.

Not the only thing on the shelf

If $108,000 is a stretch — and it is — the same store sells the small stuff: tour-used and signed sticks from the HIStory and Victory runs, signed drumheads, photo cards. Provenance without the postcode.

Final thoughts

Six figures for drums you would never gig is a collector’s number, not a drummer’s one, and the rack and cymbals being excluded stings at that price. But signed, stage-played, thirteen pieces, that show — there is only one.

Shopping at the other end of the market? Our guide to buying used drums online is rather more use, and the Rig Vault shows what the pros play now.