Time Machine .... Legend has it there is a "Portal" out in the Mountains of Escondido where these came from (Road to Escondido..Clapton/Cale) where ya know... things come n go... actually I am not kidding...

I am beginning to think maybe he had someone else do the 'resto' aka painting, badge swap and they very well could have done a switch on him... he probably had these sitting for 30yrs and some charlatan came along... being a guitar player I saw lots of that in the 80's with peoples Strats, Les Pauls and their PAF's etc...

In that case those might even be Rocker shells. I'd double check that they are 6 plies thick.

whoa the plot thickens...could that explain the 12" deep rack and the 15" deep bass drum with plugged rear cleat holes?? Hmmm how many ply should I be looking for the rack tom weighs a ton... it looks like 4 thick plys then thinner plys on the outside n inside...

Rockers were generally 4 ply for toms ( not sure on bass drums). Sounds like you have six there on the drum you described. What triggered that thought was your bass drum claws are the generic type sometimes seen on Rocker sets, but maybe the Ludwig originals went missing or perhaps someone snagged them and replaced them with cheaper ones.

Looks like there are 8 lugs on your tom so that would be a 6 ply shell from that era (early 80s), a Rocker would just have six (as would a tom made in the 70s).

very observant of you on the lug thing... ... this guy had the kit 'restored' by a guy in 2012.... my gut tells me they swapped shells on him .... thanks and I think the Court Mediator (me) maybe resting his case...LOL Thanks I really appreciate it..

"almost" as now my goal is to find this shmuk that jacked this guy... he said in 2012 he pulled the hardware and badges (guy bought the orig badges for $100 since they were 'bent up') as the finish was glossy black and he wanted satin black... so they weren't Panther Vinyl... they guy returned the refin'd shells and all the hardware went back on... hmmm all sounds good EXCEPT the extra 2 lugs/tringle mount on the rack tom....this is like a Nancy Drew Mystery Novel ..lol

Those are from somewhere between 1982 and 1984, if the badges are original, otherwise they could be as late as the early 2000's Monroe NC era of Ludwig drums with the badges switched. Power tom sizes and 8-lug rack toms didn't come out until about 1981-82-ish, same time the Modular hardware came out, which is what those tom mounts are. I think this guy is either totally clueless, or he got screwed by somebody doing the "restoration" work for him. Black panther drums are a vinyl finish and they would have been a 3-ply shell with reinforcement rings if they were in fact from 1970, as well as they would not have the Modular hardware OR 8-lug toms OR deep power toms sizes.

Something smells rotten in Denmark......DOH

Here's what I don't understand....if the guy worked @ both Ludwig and then later DW, why did he farm out the work for restoration? Hmmmm

The other thing that bothers me about this is the fact that he said he worked @ the Monroe Ludwig factory......those shells could be from Monroe as I stated in my above post.....sounds like the guy is out to pull the wool over someone's eyes.....If you are the one that bought these and you were thinking of flipping them for a profit, you may make a small profit, but probably not very much as the amount of work and cost outlay required to put them right would outway the value of the drums. If you bought them as a players kit for yourself to use and keep, you did fairly well for a semi-complete kit of that era.

Either way, they are not what the guy represented them as. But lets get real here, did you really think you were gonna score a black panther kit for $300 in this day & age? Mind Blowi

The shells look like 6 ply Ludwigs to me. I'd guess early 80s.

The claws look like aftermarkets.

The guy who got him the repro badges ..(who paid him 100 for the orig bent badges, and who no doubt ended up swapping the orig shells ) worked for LUdwig in NC not the guy who owned these when he was 5...