Iam thinking this set is a put together set and may not be all Ludwig drums,so many questions but by the photos the bass drums look wrong 8 lugs per a side on a 22" bass drum?? the spurs look wrong to me too,maybe slingerland??..The toms on the floor tom don't look like Ludwig at all the tom mount is wrong Pearl like,and the lugs just don't look Ludwig to me more like Pearl type of lugs...As others have said better photos would help out alot,but going by the few photos you posted 500.00 seems high for the set if its not all Ludwig...Mikey

Ditto on the 8 lugs bass drum, unless they're 20"ers. Really the only thing going for it for that $500 is the 2 bass drums and you can tell this set is not original. Low res photos, but the tom mounts for the concert toms don't seem consistent for a Ludwig. A discerning eye may want to look at them, but unless you go and look and have a phone number ready to send photos to, you'd be as much in the dark as you are now. Maybe the drum teacher would be willing to go with you?

Thanks for all your replies.

As far as my son's level, I am totally music illiterate but he sounds very good. He and his twin play in a little "band" and have gotten rave reviews. They are 14. His current teacher (Ron Emory) was a member of an eighties punk band called TSOL. He still is very connected to the music industry. And he has commented that both my sons are very talented (twin plays bass). That's all I can go by. They have actually written and recorded songs at their teacher's home recording studio. I was impressed, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything!

He has an old crappy set now. On the advice of previous teacher, we replaced the heads and have been adding decent cymbals. But we are thinking that it is probably time to upgrade the drums. They were his big brother's, cheap set, probably 10 years old.

I am going to look at the set mentioned by a previous poster.

Thanks again everyone!~

For $500 you can buy some good stuff. First of all, are you in SD? If not, where are you located? That will make a big difference as to what you can find, and what you will ultimatly pay. If you are in SD, you may well have a small pond to fish from and higher than average prices to go with it, unless the economy has the area down, and then you will be in the drivers seat. Look for stuff a little higher priced, and go look, cash in hand, and you will be better than the rest of the respondants.

Most C/L sellers deal with a ton of "Will you take $xxx.xx for this kit?" by email with no warm bodies in sight. Going to see the goods in person is the best way, I have found, to get the best deal. Let's say there is a TAMA Imperial Star for sale and they are asking 750. You show up with a top dollar figure in mind of 500, again cash in hand. Don't tell them how much ytou have or plan to spend until you feel them out. If the deal includes cymbals, first tell them you have a 500 budget, after you are sure this kit will work, then stand on it. You can always walk away. However, they want your money, and you can always deal to leave the cymbals out. Many times, these deals include beginner crap cymbals anyway, and they think they are worth far more than reality, leave them out, drums are yours, they are stuck to sell the cymbals.

That said, there is a vintage Slingerland kit for sale there for $550 and that is a deal if they are in good condition...

Just a quick question, Are you saying that they made Ludwig Toms without bottom lugs because it was the style at the time or did drummers just forgo the bottom head?

Ludwig and other manufacturers make single-headed toms like these for concert percussionists. Since these "concert toms" aren't intended to have a bottom head, there's no need for lugs on that half of the drum. For a while in the 1970s, these concert toms were also popular on drum sets.

Of course, some drummers elected to go for the concert tom effect by removing their bottom heads (sometimes along with the resonant head from the bass drum). This is part of the reason it's not uncommon to find old drums with missing hoops, busted-up bearing edges, and out-of-round shells.

Thanks Skydog,

That makes total sense, maybe I should get out to more formal concerts ;-) I got my R-360s sans the bottom rims & heads and kinda wondered why someone would do that.