The imperial lugs were on the SONOR Extra`s from the fifties.

Yes they were (although those were nickel), from 1936 and all the way to the mid-1970s I believe. I was actually talking about the one pictured here. And I was wrong about the metal plate inside the tom, I also found it on a Swinger tom from that era :)

Alex

Yup, the two shown on this thread are D-400 series for the early 70`s beginner kits. The Swinger snares usually had a mix of upper end parts put together and re-labeled. Sometimes the other series were given choices of what they wanted when ordered.

Both of the snares here are good sounding snares and worth what was paid. They both rival the Acro. If you notice the Ludwig appeal of the second one shown. The throw resembles a Leedy-Ludwig one, the lugs are obvious and the T-rods are similar to Leedy.

There`s a connection between SONOR and Ludwig that needs to be sorted out. Thing is, it wasn`t public knowledge and gonna be near impossible to prove factually.

Here`s what I mean, If I didn`t know these were twenties SONOR, I would bet your life they was a Leedy or Ludwig.

Seventies beginner snares seemed to touch on Ludwig a bit. Like these two.

Question for Elvin,

When you look at the dark drums with the heads removed, Is the stain on the edge of the wrap ? If they did that stain while the wrap was on and carried over to the outside like that, you would see the stain on the edges of the wrap. It would wipe off the face.

Remember the vistalites ? SONOR did.

Your snare is a Sonor D453 with imperial lugs. It was sold with the Sonor Ranger and Medley set and can be found in the (i believe) 1979 leaflets of these drums on the Sonor museum site:

[ame]http://www.sonormuseum.com/1971/Ranger_K172WM.pdf[/ame]

[ame]http://www.sonormuseum.com/1971/Medley_K152WM.pdf[/ame]

They weren't oficially offered with the Swinger sets (as far as i know).

It's still not clear/known if Sonor or Ludwig was first with these imperial lugs.

The vertical seems were definitly not Sonor. Sonor stopped with these vert. reinforcements in the mid to late 50ties teardrops. (only on 3 mm shells seen till now). They also were smaller and thinner than yours.

Henk

I can't see anything here, but I checked the pages in the Sonomuseum. I can't help noticing some differences between those snares - mine has a different throw-off (as Henk's pictures do), his has the one found on my D454 (as in the catalogs). On his and one of Henk's there are mallets on the lugs, on mine there aren't. Henk's photos show a badge that I've only seen on 1960s drums, ours seem to have the stickers (or none).

So...... what's going on?? :)

Alex

The sixties badge you speak of was carried over to Champion and Super Champion. The foil stickers were on the metal snares and beginner kits and acrylic kits.