Funny you posted this question a few weeks ago me and a good friend was talking about this..We both have about 30+ years in buying and selling vintage drums...This is the list that we came up with...Hands down when it comes to sparkles both galaxy and burgundy would have to be the rarest next in line green,champagne,gold and blue,red,silver 1960s....As far as pearls Number one on the list would have to be pink oyster pearl and so on..Mikey

Good topic and great question!

Someone mentioned a maple Jazzette. YES! They are rare...but not as rare as a mahogany Jazzette. I have actually seen more individual maple Jazzette kits than I have seen any other color for a Jazzette kit. Having said that, the two main finishes listed for Jazzettes in the catalog were maple and mahogany. And it was the mahogany finish they used to depict the Jazzette in all the photos. So it's unusual that the mahogany finish is so rare. If I had just started looking for them, yesterday, it might not seem so weird, but, in all my years of looking for them, specifically, I have only seen ONE real mahogany Jazzette kit -and it was slightly messed with. If someone's got them, they aren't talking.

But thats real irony. Mahogany and mahogany Cortex are not that "rare" of a finish as far as finishes go...but that finish in combination with the configuration is a real hen's tooth to find!

Anybody, all you ludwig guy's must know !

There was a Blue Mist color that was offered on Standard drums.

Was it similar to the mods?

Discovered this thread and just want to say that a finish I've never seen in real life is the Bronze Mist Lacquer while I always had the impression that Black Panther is quite common, at least here in Sweden.

Different eras had rarity scales. Starting with WFL it was tough to find any of the sparkle in the 1930's on WFL drums. They made them but sold mostly WMP, BDP, blue/silver/blue duco, black/gold/black duco and white enamal. By the 50's sparkles were common and most of the finishes were around. It is very tough to find 50's WFL sparkle sets that do not have blotchy spots or fade. Green sparkle faded really bad.

By 1959-60 pink oyster pearl came out and this is probobly the rarest finish of all. Black galaxy is pretty rare and for the psych finishes, citrus mod is by far the rarest, while mod orange is not too far behind. I have seen numerous psych red sets over the years. They are tough to find with all the greens.

Green sparkle is hard to find in unfaded condition as burgandy sparkle is pretty rare.

I love Ludwig WMP but i must be in the minority because I don't care for WMP much when it has yellowed. I like it nice bright and white. Seeing really white WMP ludwig drums is a treat.

Sky blue is pretty rare as well and the natural maple and mhogany finishes are rare. I know someone that has a jazzette in mahogany. It is pretty beat up though. I also saw a 22,12,13,16 once from 1969 in mahogany. hard to make a definitive scale of what is rare since there are many factors involved.

It might have been a strata instead of a mist.

So, are you saying that red and silver are more common than blue sparkle, with silver being the most common of all? I've heard from multiple people that blue sparkle was the most common...perhaps it's the most common sparkle finish to appear in the marketplace. THAT'S another factor--what you see in the marketplace versus what's actually out there!

My guess would be that most common sparkle finish was blue sparkle.