Thanks for the info ! http://www.ludwig-drums.com/en-us/ludwig/serial-guide
On this page I see information about unnumbered years.
But on this page
https://reverb.com/news/how-to-date-a-ludwig
I see more defined information. It looks like (according to this page) that there were left over not numbered plates that may have been used a few years after. (Im thinking this is what happened to mine now that KCDRUMDAD has mentioned the throwoff and R logo.
Thanks for the info !
The serial number guide at Ludwig's site is taken from Rob Cook's timeline that he developed in about 2005 (although years 1978 and 1979 are not currently correct on Ludwig's site, but restate the serial number ranges from 1967 and 1968 by mistake). Rob Cook's "out of sequence, unnumbered" entry has been greatly misunderstood. Not all of the drums produced in 1970 were unnumbered and most were not any more out of sequence than in other years. There are also badges from other years which do not have serial numbers. Rob Cook provided one of the first attempts to establish a serial number/date stamp timeline, and his chart is the only one that addressed the Blue/Olive badges of the 1970s. It is a good effort, but the table should not be read without considering the accompanying text in his book about Ludwig drums. Additional data gathering has improved upon and augmented Mr. Cook's original work and those who developed the first dating guides in the 2000s.
The Reverb entry is largely information taken from other sources without credit, including copying of Rob Cook's original dating chart. The text in the Reverb article does expand a little on the existence of badges without serial numbers in other years. Strangely, and without providing any supporting data, it moves the date for most of the unnumbered badges to 1971, even while reporting in the chart that 1970 was a year where serial numbers were "N/A." This is not only incorrect based upon additional data that has been gathered, it is internally inconsistent.
For more in depth information, I would suggest the following three threads which discuss different aspects of Ludwig Blue/Olive badges without serial numbers.
http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=56807
