This one is a blast from the past that I really never did an article about. This drum is on pgs. 14-15 in my book: THE CUROTTO COLLECTION.
The story behind the purchase of this drum took a few turns for the worse before I was able to get involved. This drum was listed on EBay in the early 2000s. There were a number of bids, a lot of interest and the drum was reaching a pretty good price. All of a sudden a number of bidders withdrew their bids because someone had posted to the seller that his drum was a “6-lug” drum. Well, that was a true statement as the photos clearly showed that the drum was indeed a 6-lug snare drum. I guess the bidders thought that this drum was or should have been an 8 or 10 lug drum so the reverse frenzy resulted in all of the bidders retracting their bids...or...getting buyer’s remorse at the current price it was at? The simple answer is that at the time this snare drum was made Ludwig was only making 6-lug snare drums. The seller was very upset and ended the auction. This was at a time when it was very easy to contact an EBay seller via phone so I called the seller, validated him and his correct 6-lug snare drum was able to do the deal without involving anyone except me and the seller.
THE SHELL:
The 5 x 14 heavy 2-pc. brass shell is gold plated in a satin gold plating with very ornate scroll engraving in every panel and a large presentation oval taking up a top and bottom panel. An interesting artifact from yesteryear is that the regular factory air hole was plugged in order to use the area for the top of the presentation oval and an alternate air hole was drilled right above the butt plate. Be sure to check out the photos.
THE HARDWARE:
The hardware is gold plated and brightly polished. The single band top rim has the “LUDWIG & LUDWIG CHICAGO” oval stamp which indicates that this drum may have started out as an early heavy brass shell Universal Model.
As a bonus the drum came with calf heads and silk-wound snares.
Enjoy!