1930s Ludwig & Ludwig Full Dressed Super Ludwig Snare : 5 x 14

1930s Ludwig & Ludwig Full Dress Super Ludwig Snare

Size : 5 x 14

Shell : Solid Mahogany w/ Reinforcement Rings

Finish : Full Dress Avalon Pearl

First appearing in the 1928 catalog, Avalon Pearl was amongst five original wrap color offerings by Ludwig. “Let Color Work For You” launched a campaign to promote and advertise more ‘flash’ in the drummer’s set up. Needless to say, Ludwig was heavy on suggesting how spectacular these new finishes were!

‘“Pearls,” what a magic word. The name conjures to our minds, wealth and beauty, warmth and lustre. Ludwig AVALON Pearl is a new finish of pearly beauty and sparkling high-light display. Flashes and sparkles with a warmth and brilliance of color, and pure beauty of the sea grotto. White bright and showy, a wonderful display finish for snare or bass drum.’

The Avalon Pearl finish continued to make it into the 1932 Drum Corps and 1933 Drums follow up catalogs while a couple of the other wrap options were replaced by new selections. Ludwig then introduced new ways to customize finish options for drum corps. This included mixing hoop inlay and shell finish colors, transferring emblems or logos onto the drum and finally adding ‘contrasting Pearl Diamonds’. Interestingly enough, Ludwig did not advertise this diamond option on snare drums (outside of drum corps snares) with the exception of their Hi-Luster snares in the 1933 catalog. These were a blue or green durable (or so they thought) paint, but this is for another article. It wasn’t until the 1938 catalog, which was well after the transition from tube lugs to imperial lugs, that Ludwig openly advertised decorative patterns to be used on standard snare offerings. (ref p.13 of 1938 catalog) The newly chrome, or better listed as ‘chromium’, plating for hardware also premiered in the 30s catalogs as a more expensive alternative to the nickel plating that remained available.

As I’m sure the reader has already noticed, one of the most interesting features of this drum is the strangely located oval badge under one of the tube lugs. It is likely that this drum was special ordered to have the diamond fittings in the early 1930s and the diamonds were not cut as large as they would have been for field drums, for obvious size reasons. Potentially, instead of dropping a diamond off of a panel or shooting the badge grommet through a diamond, they simply located the badge between two diamonds, landing under a lug. Why, who knows... ?

In addition to the rarity of the finish and oddity of the badge placement, the history of this drum dates back to the famous Frank’s Drum Shop in Chicago, IL. The interior of the shell retains its original tag from Frank’s Drum Shop in addition to an original batter side calf slunk head that also sports the Frank’s ink stamp. Frank’s Drum Shop was founded by Frank Gault in February of 1938. It spawned from his previous affiliation with Dixie Music House which had previously burned down. Considering Frank had an ongoing repertoire with the drummer community, his newly founded shop became an instant hang with customers rolling over from the Dixie Music House. The shop was later purchased by Maurie Lishon in 1959 and remained open until closing in the early 1980s shortly after Maurie sold the shop to his son. Considering the opening of Frank’s in 1938, it adds to some of the mystery to the date of this snare. Possibly this was a special order during the late 30s? Or simply it was among Ludwig inventory that was sitting around and then supplied to Frank’s shortly after the opening? Coincidentally, this photo featured in ‘Frank’s For The Memories’ shows Maurie playing what appears to be a similar dressed Ludwig snare in 1938.

Frank’s Drum Shop was (and still resembles) the iconic drummer’s hang drum shop. Many shops today have based their business model off of the president that Maurie set with Frank’s.