seems like a few of us are working on 60 trans badge pioneers right now. i just put mine together this past weekend. mine is a march 7 1960 drum. has 4 stamps inside the clear mahogany interior. one of them is stamped 68,which probably explains the overkill on the others. mine has nickel lugs. nickel over brass hoops. but the original strainer and butt are chrome. i replaced the tension rods. mine also has no internal muffler. real deep snare beds.in this pic, check out this strainer though. i read they only used this around 59-60. it is actually called a p85 large pioneer strainer. nothing like the p85 that came 10 years later or so. it is a three point strainer. dont see many of these.like mentioned, hard to say why ludwig did what they did back in the day.