advice on quote"vintage"quote drums...

[sthslvrcnfsn]

If any body has some experience in this area, please pm me, or post here or something. I finally found a kit I like the sound of, and it's an old 60s Ludwig. I just wanted to get some second opinions on the whole deal.

thanks

[cgarges]

What sort of advice? Anything specific and pictures will help. There's been PLENTY of discussions about whether or not certain old kits are worth "X amount " of dollars or yen or pounds or whatever. Do a search for "vintage AND drums" and see what comes up. Better yet, do a search for "vintage AND Ludwig."

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[sthslvrcnfsn]

Thanks Chris- I'm basically looking for second opinions; somebody either to back up my thoughts, or say that I'm totally wrong.

Unfortunately, I've only seen the prospective kit once, and it was on a very short lunch break. The owner of the store is out of town until Monday, and I'm going to give them a really good inspection then. I will also take my brand new DIGITAL CAMERA (hurray!).

I have checked with a few drummer-friends, and also found a very cool website about dating and inspecting old Ludwig kits for quality and for serial/year "jiveness" (http://www.vintagedrum.com/ludwig_serials.htm). Oh, and let's not forget eBay, I've looked on there pretty extensively for about three weeks.

The kit itself ... 1965 Ludwig silver parkle, jazz sizes - 20x14 kick, 12x8 rack tom, 14x14 floor tom, no snare . The kick hoops have a few nicks, and one of the inlays is missing from one hoop. Other than that they appear to be in good shape. I was told that the rack tom is a year different than the other two drums, even though the hardware finish, shell color, and badge are identical. It is visible in the way the lugs are configured - each rim has ten lugs, and in 1965, the shells had 20 pieces of hardware on them. By saying that I mean, each lug fits into it's own peice of hardware on the shell. This supposedly mismatched rack tom however, has only 10 pieces of hardware, each piece is the recieving end for one lug from each rim, so it recieves two lugs total. Although this guy seemed to know what he was talking about, it would make sense that the rack tom HAD to be manufactured that way since it is only 8 inches deep, and there's probably not enough room for 20 pieces of hardware on the shell.

Anyways, as far as price is concerned, he wants $800, which I think is pretty fair. Depending on whether or not there is a snare included, I've seen mint 60s Ludwig 3-pieces (4, obviously, with the snare) on the aforementioned websites and others for anywhere from $1100 to about $2000. So if the only problems are the minor mismatch, and the kick being a bit roughed up, I am pretty comfortable paying his price.

It all really comes down to sound I guess, since I'm not a collector who's going to set this kit up and leave it there, untouched, for years. All three of the drums have a tone that is like the other ones.

Any more thoughts?
thanks
jim![/url]