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Spurs were a special order perhaps?

20/12/16 is a bit of a weird combo as far as how it came to be. They sold 13/16/22 & 12/13/16/22 & 12/14/20 but not a 12 & 20 with a 16". Could have been special ordered or the 16" is an add on. I guess we'll never know but looks to be a cool set.

Fish - Ludwig started using that Granitone paint on Standards in 1968. Because it was the low-end kit in the catalogs some of those early kits may have sported the old fold-out legs to economize on hardware. So strange, those Standard kits all used the same shells as any of the high end kits, yet they are so cheap when compared to their counter-parts. I think that part of the reason why Standards sound so good is precisely because they used lighter/cheaper lugs and hardware. The fold-out legs may have been left-over stock and they just put them on the early Standard kits until the stock was gone. Just a guess, but it makes sense.

Sweet kit.

John

Yep, can't beat the bang for the buck you get with Standards vs. any other drums from that period.

I have had a foul taste in my mouth for Ludwig drums ever since I was forced to play a new set furnished by Ludwig for a battle of the bands in Chicago in 1967. That drum set was terrible. The tom holders would not hold position, the bass drum spurs kept collapsing, and a few other factors made for a horrible experience. I have not owned any Ludwig drums until a few years ago when I picked up a Black Sparkle Acrolite snare drum for $35. It's a good sounding drum. I traded a set of drums for a set of Ruby Strata Standards (20-12-14-matching snare). They are terrific drums except for the lugs that are very pimply. I keep my eyes open for a bargain priced group of regular Ludwig lugs for the entire drum set. I don't think that I'll ever want any Ludwig top line drum sets vintage or new.

Yep. From what I understand, you could order about anything you wanted as far as swapping drums around - just like the Classic's. If it was me, I would have gotten a 13, 16 but that's now, now then. twelve inch rack toms were pretty much the standard at that time. Sure, there were lots of 13's, but in a one up, one down configuration twelve was still 'it'. Although that wouldn't last much longer.

Just as an aside: When many kits were purchased with two rack toms in the early to mid sixties, and maybe fifties (not so sure about that) you got two 12" rack toms. Especially in the days of rail mounts.

Hi John

How ya been? I'm thinking just like you. The shells were exactly the same. In fact, some of my 'Standard' drums have the white, not granitone interiors. I figure Ludwig needed a 20" bass to complete the order, and grabbed one off the line. The odd thing - thinking about it now - is that it prob would have had a white interior. Maybe the original owner ordered it with those spurs. It's impossible to tell. Your assumption about weird parts (and interiors) on Standard kits is exactly right. A good friend told me he'd seen a Standard kit with a rail mount, and no extra holes for a post.

Weird stuff happened in those days at the Ludwig plant.

There's been a thread or two about that very thing - changing out the light duty lugs for classic's. I've never heard a set like that, but I would imagine it would sound very, very close to a regular Ludwig kit of that era.

I REALLY like Acrolite's. I've got a bunch, and include them in my snare rotation.

Those Ruby's look sweet! Did you change the post mount on the bass? It looks like a normal Ludwig Classic mount.

In the 60s, two 8x12 toms were very common with 20" and 22" bass drums and either 14x14" for the 20" bass drum or 16x16" for the 22" bass drums. I had a few Slingerland and Camco sets with two 8x12 toms.