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July 27, 2009 - Ludwig Black Beauty and Ludwig Standards

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Hello everyone! Due to a post on the forum and a bunch of emails about certain Ludwig drums I thought it was best to create special pages for them.

Here is a nice Black Beauty time line based off of catalogs and flyers. This is for the re-introduction in 1977, not the original early 20's version.

Ludwig Black Beauty Time Line

This shows that in the late 70's the shells were brass and around the time Selmer takes over in 1981 they switched to bronze. There are probably cross over drums during the time the switch was made in 1981. I guess that goes without saying for Ludwig using up inventory and getting drums out the door.

I did talk to BIII about this last week (July 2009) to pick his brain a little and he did say it was purely a cheaper metal and Selmer was holding the reins.

Then based on another few posts here and many emails about serial numbers, badges and finishes I put together a section for the Ludwig Standard line of drums.

Ludwig Standard Drums

I think 3 more special sections are in order and I will probably work on those in the coming weeks. I like to take as much catalog and flyer information as possible. Since we all know that Ludwig has a bunch of cross-over drums and drums that should not really exist but do.

1. The Jazz Fest

2. The Acrolite

3. The Supra and Super

David

Posted on 15 years ago
#1
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Awesome! I'm looking forward to the next three - great job!

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, is it insane to practice?
Posted on 15 years ago
#2
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I decided to forge ahead on the first two pages. One featuring the Ludwig Acrolite Snare Drum and the other being the Ludwig Jazz Festival Snare Drum.

These are in the beginning stages and as I dig through the archives I find bits of information which will get added to the pages.

As I was looking through my Ludwig Drummer collection I was hoping to find the announcement for the Acrolite. Fortunately as I turned through the Spring of 1962 issue I found it! So that is the earliest piece of history so far dating the drum to early 1962.

I will also add a finish timeline and a value timeline to the Acrolite.

During my research I found a few tidbits for the Black Beauty page including another 1981 Flyer page and then added the page that the black beauty came back to being brass in the 1994 catalog

Ludwig Acrolite Snare Drum

Since I had pulled the Ludwig bin down to find the page in The Ludwig Drummer, I also went ahead and started scanning all of the NARD bulletins which are included in each issue.

So one project moves me into more.

The page for the Jazz Festival is in its very early stage. I started this page with a 1955 and 1957 drum each with 8 lugs and the P83 Strainer. The difference is that these two were listed as 5 1/2" depths.

Then the Jazz Fest came in at a 5" depth. So we do see a lot of these drums that are proper era Jazz Festivals with deeper shells.

Ludwig Jazz Festival Snare Drum

More later and here is the NARD page (link below), look at the bulletin section for NEW at the bottom. These will be the recently added bulletins. Lots of great history and reading going up!

NARD History

David

Posted on 15 years ago
#3
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