I already asked the seller for a clean picture of the entire badge.

I will report what I learn.

I figured you already had. But I still like to answer peoples posts.

This is interesting, curious to see how this ends up. Odballs response has me convinced that its fake.

I received this response to my request for a picture of the full badge:

"Hey Rick,

The drums are in a storage location and hour away, will not be there until next week, (I have hundreds of sets)

Sorry

Jan"

I am not going to draw any conclusions from the response. Based upon his eBay history and items for sale, this seller does have a lot of drums. Many of these are 1970s Ludwigs. including many Vistalites. Perhaps the item will not sell and the seller will provide a picture of the full badge once he can access the drum. Until that time, I will save pictures and make a note in my log about this discussion. Maybe more drums with serial numbers in this 100,000 range will pop up.

Rick

That would be cool If there were more in that Serial # range. We will wait and see.

Hey Rick I found Another one. Check It Out.

70's Ludwig 9x13 Pattern "D" Red, White Blue USA American TOM.

147XXXX badge number.

[ame]http://www.ebay.com/itm/70s-Ludwig-9x13-Pattern-D-Red-White-Blue-USA-American-TOM-rare-/251592278262?pt=US_Drums&hash=item3a941180f6[/ame]

check out the other vistalite toms he is selling. The have badges with 13XXXXX up to 18XXXXX. But look at the badges them selves. They look way to new.

[ame]http://www.ebay.com/itm/70s-Ludwig-Vistalite-14x16-GREEN-concert-tom-/251592304625?pt=US_Drums&hash=item3a9411e7f1[/ame]

[ame]http://www.ebay.com/itm/70s-Ludwig-Vistalite-9x13-GREEN-concert-tom-/251592310150?pt=US_Drums&hash=item3a9411fd86[/ame]

[ame]http://www.ebay.com/itm/70s-Ludwig-Vistalite-12x15-GREEN-concert-tom-/251592313014?pt=US_Drums&hash=item3a941208b6[/ame]

Now here's one with an old badge.

[ame]http://www.ebay.com/itm/70s-Ludwig-Vistalite-12x15-Pattern-A-Amber-Yellow-Red-needs-repair-/251592321661?pt=US_Drums&hash=item3a94122a7d[/ame]

Something I just thought of that I want to ad. I wondering If the seller or a past owner replaced the original badges with repo's cause they were in bad shape and stamp the serial # in the new badge. I seen it done before but never that well.

The A drops below the G....They`re fake. The last one is real deal !i

If I wanted to move stolen drums, that`s what to do, change the badges.

Hmmmmmm !i

I wasn't sure what you were talking about until I looked at the badges again Now I see what you mean. The A in USA is lower on the badges on the green vistas where it's not on the Tequila Sunrise drum. That's something I never would have picked out.

Good point also about moving stolen drums. Change the badges they can't be traced.