Hi all,

Well it's here...

2009 6.5x14 Ludwig #1912 100th Anniversary Gold Triumphal

I knew about this a little over 2 years ago so when it officially became a part # in the Ludwig catalog Don Frank at Gelb Music (where I teach) placed the order. As you probably already know, each drum is serial numbered with a year of Ludwig's production (1909-2009); #1909 was supposedly set aside for the Ludwig Company so #s 1910-2009 were available to the public. I'm happy with #1912 (3rd one offered to the public) as 1912 signifies the very early years of L&L snare drum production. For a non-Ludwig endorser (me) this is a very low number. I think that Adrian Kirchler (AK Drums, Italy) nailed it on this drum. This guy is the real deal and a true artisan. Here's a few cool facts about this drum. The engraving pattern is the same as my 5x15 Super-Ludwig Triumphal on pgs. 16-17 in my book. Modern Drummer had an ad about 3 issues ago that stated that you could request that your name or initials be engraved on the top rim. This turned out to not be true as MD mistakenly printed the add or Ludwig didn't pull the ad in time, something happened. Consequently, from what I am told by AK is that there are only 3 orders that have the top rim engraved with the owner's names, my drum was one of them. I asked AK if he could engrave the lugs in the same style of the lugs on the original Triumphals and he did a very cool thing; he did engrave the lugs of the Triumphals but only for owners of original Triumphals so of the 100 anniversary snare drums only 3 have engraved lugs. The only thing that I would have liked to have seen was a nice Ludwig 100th Anniversary logo on the batter/snare side heads; notice how AK was able to spray the aluminum rims of the Evans heads to make them look like the flesh hoop of a calf head. In honor of Ludwig's 100th year anniversary I included a photo of a very early (1911-12) 6.5x14 Ludwig & Ludwig snare drum. Enjoy.

Mike Curotto