Hi,
This drum is one of the five snare drums that are on the cover of John Aldridge’s book Guide to Vintage Drums and is also featured on the cover of History of the Ludwig Drum Company by Paul William Schmidt.
1923-25 LUDWIG & LUDWIG 4 x 14 8 LUG DeLUXE/SCROLL ENGRAVED DANCE MODEL (Cat. no. 5C)
LINEAGE:
This is a great story as told to me by my good friend, fellow collector and master engraver John Aldridge who was kind enough to fill in the blanks for me and graciously allowed me to quote him: “Around 1987 I was given a lead (more of a dangling carrot) about this drum from Glen Symmonds, who was the drummer in Eddie Money’s touring band at that time. He told me that he became aware of this cool snare drum while he was on tour. I asked him to tell me more about the drum but he was not willing as he said that he may want to buy the drum. So I asked him to at least give me the city/state and he balked again so I asked him to at least give me the first letter of the city. Glen said it was ‘A’. So I looked up Eddie Money’s tour schedule and the only city on the schedule that started with an ‘A’ was Akron, Ohio. Bang! I knew a gentleman named Tom Humphries who had bought a music store from an elderly gentleman in Akron, Ohio. I called Tom and started trying to figure out what he had. When I asked about ‘the’ drum he told me that it was a mint Ludwig & Ludwig 1923-25 8 lug 4 x 14 engraved DeLuxe Model that the original owners of the music store bought from L & L in the 1920s. It seems that the drum was displayed on a top shelf in the store and sometime during the following 65 + years it had fallen over on top of the shelf and was not visible from the ground. It was discovered by the new owner as he was cleaning the area. I told Tom that I would give him STUPID MONEY for his drum. He said that he wanted to keep it but , just out of curiosity, he could not see anyone paying over $500.00 for the drum. I told him that I was writing the check as we spoke! He was surprised but did the deal. The drum was shipped to me in a custom built box made of 1/2” plywood, foam lined and in a cardboard box that was exactly the size of the outside of the wooden box. I owned the drum from 1987 to 1996 at which point Hiro Shiga, a well known Japanese collector called and asked if I still had the drum. Apparently, someone was trying to sell him another drum and claiming it was the one on the cover. It was my book and my drum on the cover, so I let him know I was looking at the drum as we spoke. Knowing the story of how I obtained the drum, Hiro said that he wanted to buy the drum from me. I said it wasn't for sale, but then he turned the table on me and said, "What if I offer you STUPID MONEY"? At this time I had gotten into a little money crunch so I asked him what kind of STUPID MONEY was he talking about. Hiro said he would pay me 10K for the drum. SOLD! That was a huge chunk of money that gave me a good head start on my financial situation.
There was a similar drum out there at the time that was purported to be the ‘Cover Drum’. But it had the original heads (or very clean ones from the same time period. I knew that the original, un-played head that was on the drum when I got it was split right down the middle, so I had replaced it with a used calf head. There was a smudge of light green paint on the flesh hoop of the top head of this drum and that’s how we were able to distinguish the real ‘Cover Drum’ from the other one. If you look at the cover to the Guide to Vintage Drums, in the panel to the left (below) of the strainer, you can see the long greenish paint smear on the flesh hoop. Just to clear up ‘below’: In the picture with the drum on its side, the paint is indeed below the strainer on the batter flesh hoop. If the drum was set upright, it would be to the *left of the strainer.
Given the documentation and history of this drum, I truly believe that to the right collector you can get 15K for this drum.”
*It looks like that greenish paint smear is also visible on the cover of History of the Ludwig Drum Company.
MY STORY:
I had previously done a few vintage drum deals with the well known Japanese collector Hiro Shiga. One deal went a little sour because of three undisclosed extra holes. Hiro was not able to reverse the deal and buy back the drum so I sold the errant snare drum (fully disclosed) and made my money back (plus a tad more). Hiro said it was an honest mistake and asked me what he could do to remedy the situation. I said “ok, sell me the 4 x 14 DeLuxe that is on the cover of John’s book” (I remembered that Hiro had mentioned to me that he owned that drum). We worked out an “adjusted”price (well under 10K) for this cover drum and voila, the drum made it back to America and into my collection.
The drum is in near mint condition and only needed a little dusting, that’s it.
Enjoy!
Mike Curotto
