Once the Beatles craze hit the US, in 1964, Ludwig found it much easier to offer all the catalog kits with either the Supraphonic 400 or the Acrolite. Ordering a matching Jazz Festival or Pioneer would have been a special order. Personally, I love a matching wood-shell snare drum, regardless of the brand of drums. However, some of my best sounding metal drums are a Supraphonic, Acrolite and a Slingerland Krupa Sound King!

-Mark

Thanks Mark. That would certainly seem to be the most reasonable answer. I'm with you on the matching finish - my bop downbeat kit would certainly be worth a heck of a lot more with the matching jazz festival. How would you explain the rarity of the downbeat, piccolo -size snare? You'd think with all of the "downbeat" kits sold that there'd be a few more of those out there? No?

I bought an new early 60's Slingerland drum set that came with a Krupa chrome snare. My next three or four new drum sets were each in stock at a music store without a matching wood shell snare. I ordered one of my sets from drums on hand at the Camco factory a few miles away from where I lived. In all of those cases, by the mid 60's, most drum sets in stores or in catalogs featured metal snare drums. This was a move to lessen the number of SKUs to offer in the product line. I kept that same same snare drum. It was a work horse. After a long lay off from owning drums, when I got back to owning them, I decided that I liked and wanted matching wood snares much more than metal snares. I was a Rogers manufacturer's representative for the last five years of CBS ownership. Rogers was NEVER owned by Fender. CBS lumped Rogers and Rhodes together with the same sales and marketing team for Fender. We did not offer matching snare drums for any of the wrapped finish drum sets--only metal snare drums. We did offer a few wood shell snares to match sunburst or natural maple drum sets or as stand-alone snare purchases.

There`s a bunch of reasons for this like people become attached to it.

Also around this time the big Rock sound was emerging with hair bands and the metal snares gave the right punch.

Factories realize that cataloged kits is just that and having the option for snare choice or choices, makes customer happy.

I keep my snares because if I kept all the kits I`ve re-done, like Jeff, I would have no room.

Then there`s the collectors that buy them up.

Plus a metal snare matches whateva....

A bunch of reasons for this,...... Just look at all those old folk wishing they kept their original Black Beauties....

Good feedback - thanks. Makes you wonder how/ why Ringo ended up sticking, for the most part, with the matching finish. I assume the how is probably that's how he bought or was given his first bop kit. The why is I don't think he really deviated from that snare finish/ style over the long run.