on inside there would be a crimp on both ends and no pitting or silver white background showing through

Weigh it.....brass is heavy. If it is, it should be close to 8-9 lbs I would guess.

I am not sure what you mean by this, what would be crimpped?

The best way to tell if that particular snare is brass would be to to take a lug off & file away at the inside of one of the holes (scrape away the plating). Yours is almost certainly not a brass-shelled drum.

The guys above talk of the original welded brass shell that Ludwig used from 58ish to 63ish. Those shells had a crimp (dent) in each side of the shell that slightly distorted the bottom edge of the drum so that the snarewires would make batter contact with the bottom head (a snarebed). There's always the hyper, hyper-remote fantastic possibility that one of those shells sat unused and then found & picked up and used at a much later time, but it's incredibly unlikely.

A more likely scenario is the possibility that it could be a spun brass-shelled shell with an acousti-perfect snare bed. Ludwig made some and on those shells (ones I've seen) a B is stamped into the shell just above the tone control knob (or behind the buttplate as on a 6.5 I once saw). Almost always those shells had a clipped Blue and Olive badge; The part of the Blue Olive badge-where the serial number goes-is clipped off, as the vent hole was drilled for a lower positioned Keystone badge. It's possible that Ludwig meant for those shells to be Keystone-badged, or it is possible that they wanted to readily identify/distinguish the drums from the Ludaloy counterparts. In any case, you see clipped badge COB 5x14s from time to time (from my experience they are from the 1970-71 time period).

There is a 70s 5x14 on Ebay now that appears to be brass (the owner filed away at one of the holes in the drum-it has a couple extra holes apparently-and indeed appears to be a brass shell). It's a little hard to date the drum, as it doesn't have the badge grommet spacing of the early 70s Supras/Supers. It does have a pointy Blue and Olive badge, but neither does it have a clipped badge nor a B stamped in the shell (at least not above the tone control). There is not a regular serial number on the drum, just a hand written number like you'd see on some of the first run Stainless Steel Ludwig drums. It could possibly be when they were bringing back the Black Beauties in the late 70s and they chromed some of the shells.

Yours is from 1969 and is in the range of the COB B stamped shells, but the fact that it apparently have a B stamped into the shell, nor a clipped badge rules it out as one of those garden variety of that particular brass drum (B stamped, clipped, etc.). Scrape down a lug hole & see if you're really curious.

BTW there are some clipped-badged 5x14 Supras & Supers that are Ludaloy (not brass). Those indeed were drilled to be Keystone badged and to fit a B/O badge they need to be cut down to fit.

Thanks to vintagemore2000 for the reply. There isn't much pitting on this drum at all. Mostly scatches from the being used. I have had this drum since 1971 and it has seen a lot of action. The pic you show tells me I don't have COB. I don't remember seeing those crimps. (My snare is at our practice site at the moment so I will have to look this weekend)

bonzoleum, Wow thanks for all that. That's a lot of info.

Again I now agree that this is not COB. It does have the keystone badge.