...Ludwig

[Nicky]

Hello there,

I just purchased an old Ludwig Silver Sparkle set (12,13,16,22). I have
two questions, probably very often asked... It has Blue/Olive badges,
which means they would be from the 70's, but I can\'t find out how to
exactly date the shells. The serial on the 12" is 1327115. Could
you help me with this?
The other question concerns the shell material and coating: there's a
"granite" coloured coating on the inside: what is it? : )
And, because of the coating, I can't really make out what type of wood
it is. Maybe you could tell what kind it is from the serial number. If
you need more info, let me know.
Hope you can help me out!

[jrfrond]

There was no particular scheme with Ludwig's serial numbers. However, your description places the drums somewhere around '74/'75 or so, when Ludwig switched to the "Granitone" (read that as : "EYEWASH") interiors. The shells were 3-ply maple/poplar/mahogany (inside to outside), and Ludwig was probably trying to squeeze every single shell into production, so the "trunk paint" covered a multitude of sins, including knots, filler, stains, discoloration, etc. Prior to this, Ludwig used a similar finish on the '69/'70 Standard series. These were not first-quality shells, and Ludwig created the less expensive Standard line to use the stragglers, rather than throw them away. After the Standards were gone, they probably had a stockpile of irregular shells, and started using them for Classic outfits, hence Granitone.

[Nicky]

Somehow that's what I figured... It doesn't strike me as being very classy to cover the entire inside of the shell with this stuff, unless there's a reason to do so.
Apart from this, I bought the kit because of the sound, which, even though the shells might be of lesser quality, is extremely rich and warm.
Thanks a lot for the information!

[mattkinel]

hey, i have the opposite problem, im trying to change my drums to the granitone finsh. John Bonham's green sparkle kit had the granitone finshes and im working on my own green sparkle bonham kit. is there any paint sold to replicate the granitone look?

-matt kinel