If you get the right grommet from My Old Kentucky Drums and his special grommet setting tool you could replace that badge grommet so that no one would ever know it had been off.

Yeah, I actually thought of that. I've got their grommet setting tool (and bloody brilliant it is too!), and will definitely consider that option. But again I want to see it in person before making any decisions. Thanks K.O.

Well, I finally got it and it is f%#@ing gorgeous! Here are some pics.

As the seller said the grommet does look like it's been removed - the whole inside lip is not there. For what reason I can't work out, as the wrap has not been replaced. You can still see it tucked nicely into the scarf joint. So unless there's a sneaky way of replicating that, then it's fairly safe to assume that someone perhaps wanted to replace the wrap, but came across the scarf joint and thought no, too hard, and left it as is with the grommet missing one end. I don't know, but that seems possible.

Apart from that, the whole thing seems complete. The muffler and knob are both round, is that correct for a '66 Ludwig? My '66 supra has the baseball bat...

Oh, I did replace the snare wires with a 20-strand Puresound. The one that was originally on there had plastic end plates with a patent number printed on them, but no manufacturer name - who makes those? I've come across several over the years. They're also rubbish. Well, the ones I've had were.

Anyway, the drum sounds great - tight, short and punchy. I took it for a test drive at a gig on the weekend, and it really wails. I'm lovin' it!

Hey, Human71, what year is yours? I notice you've got the baseball bat muffler.

How come you said it was $950 the ad said it sold for $429 ?

I'm a bit confused

No, I mentioned there was also a blue sparkle one going for $950, which was too much for me. Sorry if I made it sound confusing.

'66 drums normally used a bat muffler. They were using round knob mufflers on marching drums at the time. And you could special order them on drums as well. So it's possible. The wires that you mentioned were probably the 2517124 wires which are Ludwig original wires. The usually sound great unless they are bent or stretched out excessively.

Beautiful drum by the way!

According to the Ludwig serial number chart- Somewhere between November-March 1966-67

But then again i might be reading it wrong ?? :D Here is my serial#- 414697

it's hard to know why the badge was removed. My oyster blue pearl Ludwig kit was missing all its badges but the wrap was all original. At some point somebody must've thought the badges had more value than the kit. It now has approximately correct KS badges installed.

Like Mike, I'm a fan of the original plastic end wires if they aren't too badly stretched