Vintage Late 1950's Ludwig Transition Badge Pioneer Snare. Features a custom maple finish and Nickel over Brass hardware. Everything is original except for custom finish, heads, snare ropes and badge grommet. Clean, good bearing edges and in-round. Very nice player snare.

History of the custom finish: I had originally got this snare in with a horrible painted blue finish. It was a very poorly done paint job - blue paint all over the shell, hardware, etc. Seeing the Mahogany interior, I assumed this was a more common Mahogany exterior snare, so I proceeded to strip the paint to refinish. To my surprise there was a gorgeous Maple outer ply for the exterior! After doing some research, I found some information that Ludwig used some of these type of 3 ply shells for Duco paint finishes, as the Maple held the paint better than Mahogany. There seemed to be a base coat of white paint under the blue, but nothing that looked like the Duco finishes of that time. I thought about repainting the shell, but the Maple was just too beautiful, so I did a natural stain and a few coats of brushed gloss poly. The end result is what you see.

Asking $250.00 including shipping to continental US only. All other regions pay actual shipping. PM me with questions or interest. Thanks for looking and have a great day!