Newbie here. I found a gold sparkle Ludwig kit at the Goodwill store.

[Bonzo Moon]

I just wanted to say hi and show off my new kit to someone who understands. Since the intro forum no longer exists and this is the 1st forum listed, I thought it would be a good place to start.

I found this kit at the Goodwill store in brand new Anvil fibre cases with new top and bottom heads for all drums except the snare. The kit was partially disassembled and the hardware, except for the rims, was missing from the bass drum and small tom. All drums were covered in dark brown butcherblock tac paper. No stands or pedals and the floor tom legs were missing. Price-$250.00.

I used the snare, mount and floor tom with a black Yamaha bass at a gig Saturday night and they rocked.D' Drummer
BM

[mcjnic]

Very nice find. I love that gold sparkle. I'm still looking for a gold sparkle snare for my Luddy kit. You got a beaut there. Love it. Love it. Love it. Welcome.

[big daddy]

I'd like to meet the doofus who put the shelf paper over a gold sparkle wrap... GRrrrrr!

Awesome find and welcome to the forums. We certainly DO understand.

[GoneDrumming]

Nice score!!!!

[amosguy]

I'd like to meet the doofus who put the shelf paper over a gold sparkle wrap... GRrrrrr!

Well, the doofus did enable a nice score for Bonzo Moon. And protected the wrap as well. And he gave away the set anyway. OR maybe his mom did...

Nice score. I have found some interesting things at Goodwill. Amazing what gets tossed their way at times.

[Jaye]

Wow....yes, and good of you to act fast. Had you left and com back, it probably would have been gone.

Easy to peel off the contact paper, then remove the residue with Goof-Off or some oil-based remover (don't use an alcohol-based glue remover ~ acetone, Oops, or the like ~ on old wraps, it'll start to disintegrate the top layer and leave permanent clouding/scars).

[caddywumpus]

Um...it looks like the badge on the snare has no serial number at the top. If so, then that's a REALLY nice snag you got there...

[kevins]

So, would it be a Jazz Festival snare then ?

[jomeli57]

Welcome

That's a nice score, Enjoy them.

[fishwaltz]

WOW! Ain't that PURDY! My first real kit was a Crown in gold sparkle. I've had a soft spot (on my head my wife says) for that wrap since. Nice find! Yeah, you just have to wonder who would cover up a nice sparkle... Doofus is being so very kind.DOH

[kevins]

So, would it be a Jazz Festival snare then ?
Anybody??
Bueller??

[O-Lugs]

double post!

[O-Lugs]

6 lugs = Pioneer

8 lugs = Jazz Fest

It appears to be a Jazz Fest from what I can see.

[kevins]

double post!
Yep.......

[kevins]

6 lugs = Pioneer

8 lugs = Jazz Fest

It appears to be a Jazz Fest from what I can see.
Thanks O-Lugs!!

[mcjnic]

6 lugs = Pioneer

8 lugs = Jazz Fest



2 legs = good

4 legs = bad

[Bonzo Moon]

The snare is date stamped 1962. The 2nd tom is date stamped 1967 and has serial number 460677. The bass drum has no serial number and is not painted on the inside. The 1st tom has the serial number 7744 but no date stamp. The floor tom has serial number 20595 no date stamp.

It's possible this is a pieced together kit but after reading some of the info here I've found that in the 60s Ludwig had no system for cycling their stock. New stock was just atacked in front of old stock and drums could sit on the back of the shelf for years before being used on a kit.
BM

[O-Lugs]

It's possible this is a pieced together kit but after reading some of the info here I've found that in the 60s Ludwig had no system for cycling their stock. New stock was just atacked in front of old stock and drums could sit on the back of the shelf for years before being used on a kit.
BM

Well....There was some organization to the system that Ludwig used in the 60's. It's highly unlikely that a factory-issued kit would have had that much disparity in the numbers and dates. It's much more likely that it was pieced together. Nonetheless, the gold sparkle Jazz Festival snare drum is worth more, by itself, than what you paid for everything.

[kevins]

Well....There was some organization to the system that Ludwig used in the 60's. It's highly unlikely that a factory-issued kit would have had that much disparity in the numbers and dates. It's much more likely that it was pieced together. Nonetheless, the gold sparkle Jazz Festival snare drum is worth more, by itself, than what you paid for everything.
Yepper........

[Bonzo Moon]

Here's the info I found here.

To understand the cause of discrepancies, let’s go back in time to the Ludwig factory of the 1960’s. The manufacturing division at Ludwig was divided into two basic departments: the wood shop and final assembly. Shells were constructed, wrapped in mylar, and date stamped in the wood shop. Then the shells were drilled and hardware, heads and badges were installed in final assembly.

The date stamp didn’t determine when a shell would be sent to assembly. "It was it’s size and finish," Mr. Ludwig explained. "The shells were made in advance of the orders coming in. Sometimes we had thousands of undrilled shells all stacked up on shelves. When assembly needed a certain size shell in a particular finish, it was pulled from the shelf and sent off to them. We didn’t pay any attention to the date stamps and if a shell wasn’t needed to fill an order, it stayed on the shelf for days, weeks or months – sometimes years.

Due to the time lapse between when a shell was date stamped and when the badge was installed, some of the drums assembled on the same day with closely matching serial numbers had date stamps that were months apart from one another It also meant that some of the drums with production date stamps close to one another, would have badges with serial numbers that were tens of thousands of digits apart.

Further adding to the creation of discrepancies was Ludwig’s method of storing, retrieving and installing badges. Mr. Ludwig explained, "Most of the time when a new shipment of badges came in from our manufacturer, we still had a few boxes of them left in stock, so we just stacked the new boxes in together with the old ones. When assembly needed more badges, we just took any box at random and put it on the assembly bench. We didn’t try to keep the boxes in order or try to install badges in order by serial numbers. Our main concern was to keep things moving.".

Since there wasn’t any system of stock rotation whereby the boxes were used in the order received, I asked Mr. Ludwig about the probability of a leftover box or two stagnating for months at the bottom of a stack. Mr. Ludwig replied, "I would say in all likelihood that’s just what happened." At a production rate of about 11,000 drums per month, it meant that for each month that passed, the serial numbers on the unused badges inside of a stagnant box would fall 11,000 digits behind the progressing sequence of serial numbers. After a period of time, when the stagnant box was opened and the badges went back in circulation, the serial numbers on those badges would naturally be out of sequence with the others. For example, when a badge that was out of circulation for three months was eventually installed on a drum, its serial number would be lower than, and discrepant to, the more current badges being installed, by an amount of 33,000 digits. Refilling the assemblers’ badge bins was also a source of a limited amount of discrepancies. Since the bins were not always completely empty before being refilled, some badges remained at the bottom, stagnating there for a period of time before finally being used.

BM

[Bonzo Moon]

I have found some interesting things at Goodwill. Amazing what gets tossed their way at times.


It amazes me what people will toss out. My dad tossed a 1940's Ludwig kit in the dump when I was 8 because he was tired of hauling it around from one air force base to another. I started playing drums at 10.
BM

[O-Lugs]

Bonzo Moon,

I'm not saying that information is wrong, but I am saying that I, in all my years of collecting, have never seen a matched kit with that range of discrepancy.
And to take it one step further, I don't think it would be easy to convince any collectors that those numbers were from a matched set even with Mr. Ludwig standing right there nodding his head.
As a collector, I have to kind of go along with what the collector's market's standards are for matched kits. It very well may be that some kits were badged as Mr. Ludwig describes, because the story sounds valid. However, going by that standard would mean that anyone wanting to piece together a rogue set could easily do so and then call it a matched kit. And that would kind of throw a monkey wrench into the gears. Mr. Ludwig didn't invent the collectible drum market, after all. I can say that I have encountered enough matching-badge-numbered and closely date-stamped drum sets to indicate that there was more organization to how things were sent out of the factory doors than not.:2Cents::2Cents:

[Bonzo Moon]

O-Lugs, I tend to agree with you. My speculation, and it's just that, is that someone pieced this kit together and since the gold doesn't exactly match they wrapped them in the shelf paper. The '67 tom is more orange and the small tom is more yellow. The kick, snare and floor tom match pretty good.

I'm not real concerned with their collectable value. I got them to play and if I can get the kick together, I'm not even concerned with the small tom because I usually play a kit with a single mount '13 anyway.
BM

[O-Lugs]

It's a cool set. That's for sure!

I have a "70's" Ludwig Deluxe Classic kit -blue sparkle. None of the shells have date stamps and two of the drums have B/O badges with no numbers. The un-numbered badges indicate 1970-71. The floor tom has a B/O badge that indicates the year of 1976. After that, I found a near-mint B/O Supra that had a badge number indicating it was made in 1979.

My point is that ALL the drums are clean and look as if they could have been made on the same day. Blue sparkle is a common sparkle finish and it hasn't changed in all those years (as far as I know). The wooden shells are all 3-ply with maple interiors and look exactly alike. Visually, the drums match. But, serial number-wise, they are not a truly matched kit (by the standards I go by). Ironically, I have seen "matched" kits with different shell layups -similar to what the citation by Mr. Ludwig suggests happened. The bass drum and mounted tom might have painted interiors, but the floor tom might have an unpainted mahogany inner ply. And that would be considered a matched kit, whereas my blue sparkle kit would not. Weird, huh?Mind Blowi

So, it IS a strange and inconsistent system for determining what a matched kit is in the collecting world.