Adding pictures...

Am I crazy to try to build a kit from this? I don’t recall seeing any gold sparkle toms for sale recently.

Not at al , (maybe being on this group) but seriously it’s easy to find other drums to go with the kit just be patient

Gary

Not crazy at all. The gold sparkle is a classy beautiful kit. The right pieces will come around. Many a great kit have been built around 1 drum. Looking forward to seeing pictures when it's done

Michael

THanks for the encouragement guys!

I haven’t seen any in catalogs with two rail mounts but I think I’ve seen them on this site before.

I think you could easily build a set around this. It looks to be from the earlier part of 1968 like maybe march or April? New gold sparkle matches pretty well too so you might be able to build pieces as well. Regarding the rail mounts, Ludwig never offered a set with two like that but I'm sure it could have been special ordered as I have seen some like this. Good luck!

Here’s a picture of the date stamp. The only readable part is the year.

Going by the list on VDG it should be February or March.

I’m looking forward to building a kit around this! I found a batter he’d for it at my house last night and some replacement Ts and claws.

I have a 15" transition badge in excellent condition that could be converted into a FT. It is on ebay right now with 1 bid. 1 day left.

Adding a separate rail was a pretty common way to add another mounted tom and have a five piece set back in the day. Unlikely that the factory did that as if were being ordered as a new five piece they probably would have opted for the center post mount, although you never know. You could pull off the extra rail and fill the four small holes with chrome carriage bolts and it would be barely noticeable (and you could probably sell the extra rail for $50-$100). If you ever wanted to sell the set or bass drum those extra mounting holes might actually hold some appeal to a left handed drummer.

Looks like a nice drum. Gold sparkle is one of my favorites because my first drum set was that color. Drums in that wrap pop up fairly often on ebay and if you just can't find the drum you want you can either rewrap another one or clone one from a modern shell. As Kurt mentioned the currently available version of that wrap is still a good match.

I still own that first drum set. The larger floor tom is one I made and rewrapped a few years ago but blends right in with the others in their original 60's wrap.