I posted about my 74 Ludwig 5x14" SuperSensitive recently in the restoration section, along with photos. I've never owned a metal snare before and am a little vauge on their respective sound characteristics. It's less bright that I would have thought it would be, but that could just be heads and tuning. Like I said in the other forum section, I bought it planning on putting it up for sale on eBay, but it's sounds so good I can't see to part with it.

The ink stamp on the inside says "Reliable Anti_galv......", the last letters are missing. I have seen some on eBay and elsewhere with a small tooling stamp on the outside of the shell, something like CB or the like, indicating a brass shell, but I find nothing on mine. I can only see what appears to be the metal under the chrome in one small spot on the outside which appears to be gold in color. I really don't remember any rust on the shell prior to cleaning it.

I've tried a variety of magnets on the shell. Thin/weak refrig ones almost want to stick, maybe just to the chrome coating. Medium will barely stick, but slide off. Heavy strong ones, like the one on my underhood garage light mount, will not stick at all to the shell, but stick to the hoops and hardware strong enough to almost lift the drum off of the table.

Do I have a brass snare? Any ideas or suggestions would be nice. Thanks!

EDIT: Well, I should have done a search here first, I discovered alot. I guess it must be the "Ludaloy" version, which would account for the tone and relative light weight. The finish does have some pitting, typical for the alloy with chrome, though the pitting on mine is pretty minor concidering the age. The gold color I saw on one of the larger spots must be the brass coating involved in the plating process. Anyway, the thing sounds great!