Yesterday, I saw this drum at a local music shop. I picked it up, grabbed a stick from the demo bucket and tapped the head, and fell in love. I returned today with an old guitar to trade in and negotiated the best trade I could get.
It's a Ludwig Pioneer snare drum, a student model from around 1960. There's no date stamp on the inside (as there often is with vintage Ludwig drums of this era). Late-model WFL snares sometimes came from the factory with new Ludwig badges on them, while the rest of the hardware was old WFL stuff they were trying to use up. These earlier Ludwig badges had no serial numbers, meaning the drums would date between the late 50s and into the early 1960s. By around 1960, the inside of the shell was painted white, a finish Ludwig called Reso-Coat. It did little or nothing to improve the sound of the drum, and Ludwig used it primarily to hide flaws in the wood. It was basically just oil-based white paint, nothing more. By the late 60s, Ludwig had begun using maple shells on their drums and stopped painting the insides white so that they could let people see the higher-quality maple they were using. During the Reso-Coat period, wood shells could have been made of a variety of different woods, veneers, or plywoods. While the trainsition from WFL to the bigger and better Ludwig Drum Company was happening -- a process that took several years -- drums and accessories were manufactured using a less-standardized set of component parts. By the mid to late 1960s, Ludwig badges began using serial numbers and a more standardized set of component parts. But the period between the end of WFL (1955) and the final merging of WFL with Ludwig took several years and was a little like the wild west while things got sorted out.
The drum after I got it home:
Earlier versions might still use a WFL badge or a "transitional" badge with blue Ludwig logo printed on a brass plate.
Below: Part of the original "baseball bat" muffler. I'm looking for the felt-covered top to complete the mechanism.
Above and left: this drum had been owned by a school district, and the ID had been stamped directly into the shell of the drum on two sides. On the side nearest the butt plate, the stamp wasn't as deep, but the finish had been worn away. On the side nearest to the throw-off, someone had stamped the wood very hard and layers of plywood had fallen off, either at the time of being stamped or more likely over time with the use and abuse typically seen with school instruments. I took the drum most of the way apart. The inner bolts holding the lugs to the shell were very corroded, so I decided against trying to remove them; on a nearly 70-year-old drum there was the risk of stripping or breaking a bolt off inside a lug and not being able to salvage either. So I applied a drop of oil to each bolt, let it soak in, and then very carefully tried to snug it down. If it didn't move, I didn't force it. If it moved, I only nudged it a tiny bit.
Since I couldn't remove the lugs, I decided the best way to shine them up a little was to use some Nevr-Dull wadding to gently polish them. I also used this on the throw-off and butt plate and the rims. Comparing my drum with photos of drums in better condition, I was able to determine that my hardware is all original. The rims and lugs are in pretty nice shape; the snare mechanism less so because of a little rust and wearing off of the nickel plating, but still perfectly functional.
Ludwig used date stamping on the inside of their wood shells from around 1960 until 1971, when they switched to glueing paper labels inside the shells. Between 1960 and 1963 they used red ink for the date stamp, ad after that switched to black or dark purple. Not every shell was stamped, though it seems most were. Sadly, I could not find a date stamp on the inside of my shell -- and I looked hard. My best guess is that my drum was made between 1960 and 1963.
After considering my options, my abilities and the purpose of this drum, I decided to go ahead and use some wood hardener to stabilize and fill in the worst of the gouges in the shell, mostly caused by the school district stamping and years of wear and tear. Predictably, my hands got a little shaky during the application and I ended up spreading it in places I didn't really need to, but since it's clear and this drum's too ugly to be anything but a player I decided not to fret about it.
I've found a new Remo coated Ambassador head in my stash, which will be ideal for my uses. the Ambassador snare-side head is used, still in decent shape. I hope I can find the parts for the muffler locally later this week.
Stay tuned.
