Wow.... It's really gotten to the point that people are making, or attempting to make and sell fake vintage drums!!!

What's next?

How much more effort is it to fake the serial numbers too?

I sincerely hope that this seller has no connection to Jim Petty in Texas.

Very interesting! I messaged the seller to see if they can provide documentation, or any other info, on this kit. Also asked if they are related to Jim Petty. We'll see!

-Mark

That stamp in the drums though..

I'd like to see a closeup of the B/O badges on the kit to see if they are the correct version of the badges for that era and not the reproduction badges, but other than that I don't see this is as "a pretty bad fake". Are you suggesting the shells are not Ludwig shells? All the hardware pictured (including lugs on shells) passes muster to my eye. So does the Acro snare. Can you be specific about what evidence makes you conclude "pretty bad fake"? I'm always learning new things from others about spotting issues with vintage gear.

I recognize this seller as somebody I've come across before who tries to sell cymbals which aren't properly described (from my price tracking), and who has text in their ads which is [SIZE="5"][COLOR="Magenta"]WAY TOO BIG[/COLOR][/SIZE] and [SIZE="5"][COLOR="Lime"]WAY TOO COLORFUL[/COLOR][/SIZE]. That makes me wonder if the story about "no serial numbers on badges because it is a special order" is just internet misinformation rather than evidence of attempt to defraud. Giving incorrect information may be a sign of sloppy research, but I wouldn't want to go to court claiming fraud without better evidence. If sloppy research is a crime then there are a lot of fraudsters out there. All I see so far makes me suspicious of research skills and I'd like to see better documentation and pictures.

In the past I've documented the case of the imaginary "Zildjian C2 stamp" as an instance of internet misinformation

http://black.net.nz/avedis/anomalies.html#C2

and I've now got good stats on the proportion of misidentification of old A Zildjian cymbals by sellers

Here is a pretty version of a confusion matrix with green for right answers, and a few percentages included.

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/pretty-A-mat.png[/img]

So about 13% of sales have stamp identifications which are incorrect even after being charitable in some cases.

F = First Stamp, T = Trans Stamp, L = Large Stamp, S = Small Stamp, M = Modern (Laser). Based on 1305 cymbals, mostly from eBay sellers with a smaller number from other online sales. Note that I've only gone to the higher level of Production Era, so if the seller says "1940s Trans stamp" or even "1940s cymbal" and it is a T3 or T4 (which are actually early 1950s) I've still given them full credit for their answer. So this is fairly forgiving in terms of analysis. I still have a residual category "50" in here because often that's all the seller says and I can't just allocate those out to Small, Large, and Trans Types 3 & 4 because who knows what they were basing their claim on. The second largest group of cymbals called "50s" by sellers is actually 18 cymbals with a 1960s stamp. That raises the question of interpretation when a cymbal looks like it was hammered and lathed in the 1950s but has a 1960s stamp. What proportion of the sellers actually understand how to recognize the different hammering and lathing styles of the late 50s, and that's why they said "50s"? We've created an ongoing problem by following the convention of letting the trademark stamp stand in for the whole cymbal.

On top of the 13% wrong identifications, in a further 10% of sales, the seller makes no attempt to identify the era of cymbal and just uses weasel words like "old", "vintage", "early" and a phrase which is a great way to avoid being specific: "50s/60s/70s". Of those 130 which weren't identified it was easy for me to identify all but 9. Those 9 had no stamp photos in focus, or only distance shots of the cymbal where you couldn't see any identifying information at all. Oh, and there was 1 cymbal which was identified by the seller as "50s" but I couldn't confirm it -- again because of a lack of decent photos.

I don't know for sure what these might be...but if they are from 1984 and, indeed, "special" shouldn't they be sporting the large "Chicago" keystone badges?

Did any of Ludwigs 75th anniversary drums from that year sport any similar sort of tags inside?

I checked Rick Gier's book and the Blue Olive version BO4 goes until 1984 in his list. But those badges on this concert kit look more like the BO3 version which goes until 1982ish. I can't say for sure if they are BO3, BO4, or reproduction because of the poor pictures. We don't know how common or uncommon it might be to have BO3 or BO4 on a set assembled in late 1983 (for sale in 1984). Most of the badges on the drums pictured in the 1984 Ludwig Catalog have Blue Olive badges. The special Eagle 75th Anniversary kit is pictured with large Keystone badges, the rest are not.

Rick may have more late BO badges recorded since his book was published which can help. And hopefully somebody can confirm the ink stamps seen inside the shells. None of the pictures in the 1984 Ludwig Catalog show any ink stamps like that, but that's trying to get a glimpse inside the shells in photos designed to show the outsides not ink stamps on the inside.

ref: Richard E. Gier, Serial Number Based Dating Guides for Vintage Ludwig Drums. Rebeats, 2013

my eagle drums from 84, have the large key-stone badges.