[attach]109205[/attach][attach]109205[/attach]

Could be an original set up or pieced together, hard to tell but either way that is a very good price.

So are all the drums of the same quality in these years, or are some lower grade depending on the kit they came from. I love that they match, but my primary interest is that they are good quality. what I'm wondering is if there were "student" model quality drums in these years or are they all from the same quality pool and the only difference with kits was what sizes you needed.

Some additional closer up pictures would be nice, especially of the badges and the tom mount. Does it have baseball bat muffler knobs? What are the sizes? They look like 22/16/13 to me. If they are, that's a set, mixed or not. of Ludwig Super Classic's. If the condition, which is hard to see in the photos, is good then you got a terrific bargain. They are not student drums, rather Ludwig's top of the line professional series. Based on the dates you indicated, the shells should be painted white in the inside and are a mahogany/poplar/mahogany ply.

Thanks for the information. I'm going to go up to guitar center tomorrow and take better pics and I'll post them tomorrow. Pretty sure they had baseball bat muffler knobs and they were definitely painted white inside. The badges were gold with serial #'s etched on top. The numbers indicated 64-66 according to reverb.com.

It is highly unlikely that Ludwig would have any two year old drums in popular wrap finishes laying around their factory in the mid 60's Beatles madness that Ludwig was enjoying. Even though the Ringo Oyster Black Pearl was in high demand, White Marine Pearl, Black Diamond Pearl, Blue Sparkle, and Silver Sparkle remained best sellers for several decades of Ludwig's history. Therefore, I'm speculating that the floor tom was added to a three piece set that was a couple years older than the floor tom. There's not a thing wrong with that. Only a very picky collector would have problem with it.

All Ludwig drums were the same quality back then as far as the shells. The only lower priced drums were the Club Date series and they used the same shells but with center mount lugs and aren't really that different in any other significant way. Ludwig only made one type of shell and used it for everything. This even applies to the somewhat later Standard series drums.

It was very common to order or buy a kit without a floor tom back then to save some money on the initial purchase. This was especially true for a young drummer just getting started. Often if the drummer continued playing he would later add on a new or used matching floor tom. That might be the case here. It's even plausible that all the drums were purchased "new" with either the original buyer later adding a matching floor tom that had been in a dealer's stock for a while (but still technically "brand new") or perhaps a dealer had the older floor tom (left over from someone buying the set without the floor tom) and then ordered up the remaining drums to make up another full set to sell. In that case all the drums could have been sold together even if they weren't "born" together. All silver sparkle (or whatever finish) Ludwigs of the era were more or less interchangeable with the exception being whether a small tom was drilled to sit on the right or left side of the bass drum (still the same drums just drilled differently for the bracket in relation to the badge placement).

Back in those days nobody was obsessing about serial numbers and date stamps (or wood content, bearing edges, etc.) if the drums were the same color and matched well that was going to be the prime concern.

That seems like a great price for that set if it's in good condition. I wouldn't worry too much about the floor tom being of slightly different vintage.

Thanks a lot everyone for your help. Learning a lot and getting really excited about my score. Im lucky to walk into the exact configuration I wanted at this price. I'll be going up today to take some photos just so I can look at them (they're on layaway).

What a great score. I'm kind of surprised to see a kit priced that reasonably at GC. From the pictures it looks like all it might need is some touching up of the bass drum hoops and maybe a good cleaning.