And here is Ringo's actual snare from when it was on display with the "Ed Sullivan" set out in L.A. last year. I made the pilgrimage to see them.
Ringo had four OBP sets and the maple Hollywood set during the Beatles yet in EVERY picture of him playing he is using this particular snare. He did have one or two other OBP snares and yet he seems to have favored this one exclusively. Maybe it was due to the extra 1/2" of depth on the earliest one.
I wonder if Ringo actually wanted a matching snare when he bought that first OBP set in London or if the set he bought just happened to be so equipped and then he fell in love with the sound of that one snare. Imagine if his Downbeat set had come with the 4x14 downbeat model snare (like it was cataloged at the time) or if it had a Supra with it. A supra would have made life a bit easier for us Ringo drum fanatics.
Ringo says (on the Ludwig 100 anniversary DVD) that he saw the drums in the window at Drum City and had to have them. The previous version of the story (from the guy that sold the drums) was that Ringo saw an OBP color swatch sitting on the desk and said he wanted that color (and didn't really care what brand they were as long as they were that color). The date stamps on the inside of Ringo's first set are very close to the known date of delivery. This would suggest that the drums were rush ordered, built, and shipped to London quickly rather than having been in stock (which also doesn't fit with Ringo's version of the story unless it was a huge coincidence that a set that just arrived and was put into the window was snapped up right away by Ringo...although that is possible I suppose). Since the Beatles had yet to become very big it may have been that Ludwig rushed the order through to impress their brand new London distributor. If the drums were ordered that would also indicate that Ringo himself probably did chose to order the matching snare drum.
At this point it seems unlikely that we'll ever know the full story.
Also Ringo was never an official Ludwig endorser during the Beatles years. Ludwig was selling all the drums they could make (thanks to Ringo) as it was so there was no reason to set themselves up to possibly have to pay him for use of his name. If they had set up such a deal perhaps there would have been a factory "Ringo" kit sold including a matching Jazz fest...but there wasn't. '64 and later catalog Downbeat and Super Classic outfits didn't come with Jazz Festivals .
