It amazes me what people will toss out. My dad tossed a 1940's Ludwig kit in the dump when I was 8 because he was tired of hauling it around from one air force base to another. I started playing drums at 10.

BM

Bonzo Moon,

I'm not saying that information is wrong, but I am saying that I, in all my years of collecting, have never seen a matched kit with that range of discrepancy.

And to take it one step further, I don't think it would be easy to convince any collectors that those numbers were from a matched set even with Mr. Ludwig standing right there nodding his head.

As a collector, I have to kind of go along with what the collector's market's standards are for matched kits. It very well may be that some kits were badged as Mr. Ludwig describes, because the story sounds valid. However, going by that standard would mean that anyone wanting to piece together a rogue set could easily do so and then call it a matched kit. And that would kind of throw a monkey wrench into the gears. Mr. Ludwig didn't invent the collectible drum market, after all. I can say that I have encountered enough matching-badge-numbered and closely date-stamped drum sets to indicate that there was more organization to how things were sent out of the factory doors than not.:2Cents::2Cents:

O-Lugs, I tend to agree with you. My speculation, and it's just that, is that someone pieced this kit together and since the gold doesn't exactly match they wrapped them in the shelf paper. The '67 tom is more orange and the small tom is more yellow. The kick, snare and floor tom match pretty good.

I'm not real concerned with their collectable value. I got them to play and if I can get the kick together, I'm not even concerned with the small tom because I usually play a kit with a single mount '13 anyway.

BM

It's a cool set. That's for sure!

I have a "70's" Ludwig Deluxe Classic kit -blue sparkle. None of the shells have date stamps and two of the drums have B/O badges with no numbers. The un-numbered badges indicate 1970-71. The floor tom has a B/O badge that indicates the year of 1976. After that, I found a near-mint B/O Supra that had a badge number indicating it was made in 1979.

My point is that ALL the drums are clean and look as if they could have been made on the same day. Blue sparkle is a common sparkle finish and it hasn't changed in all those years (as far as I know). The wooden shells are all 3-ply with maple interiors and look exactly alike. Visually, the drums match. But, serial number-wise, they are not a truly matched kit (by the standards I go by). Ironically, I have seen "matched" kits with different shell layups -similar to what the citation by Mr. Ludwig suggests happened. The bass drum and mounted tom might have painted interiors, but the floor tom might have an unpainted mahogany inner ply. And that would be considered a matched kit, whereas my blue sparkle kit would not. Weird, huh?Mind Blowi

So, it IS a strange and inconsistent system for determining what a matched kit is in the collecting world.