That is just beautiful! I can't imagine that there's another kit of that age, anywhere, that's been kept in that condition, and exactly as it was in the catalogue. It's a privilege seeing it, even on a computer screen.
age isn't a reference to quality. thats the golden age of engineering and design. the 1911 pistol is still viable after more than 109 years... music was in its infancy then, but that snare with modern wires, would sound awesome.
lol i just did the same calculation! it's a deluxe model though, so it falls in line with todays price's! Maybe even a bargain, ie Gretsch Brooklyn Standard Set Mahagony = about $3000. Great traps kit though, price aside an' all!
It was great to see how they were stored in such compact manner as well as their catalogue entry. That snare had me salivating and the provenance story at the end was icing on the cake.
...Was just wondering if it served for something like that... interesting - but, are you certain of that? I ask because I'm thinking if they warmed the drum this way then turned it off to play (or I'd imagine the bulb would pop pretty quick) then the drum would be cooling off fairly dramatically throughout the set? ..And get pulled way out of tune as a result. After playing a little with a calfskin kit I picked up I'd imagine this would be making an already temperamental tuning job a lot more awkward.
It's my understanding the bulb was more of a humidity control than a strict temperature control. Steamy clubs + playing caused the calf-skin to go slack. Drummers retightened the skins by drying them out. Or so I've read.
definitely the lights are to warm up skins in cold weather. Skins do not perform well in cold temperatures, and the grandfather was gigging in Nebraska, it gets cold there.
I have never seen a old snare drum like that. I didn't know they made Black Beauties that long ago. The copper hoops and cat gut snares, absolutely amazing. Y'all are lucky to be able to play with it.
That was AMAZING! To see that not only was the entire kit together, but it had been added onto with various traps! It was like finally opening up a time capsule!
Someone else did the dollar value from 1928 compared to today, so that kit was about the same cost as a pro Ludwig kit these days (for the same pieces). Awesome!
Seems like a perfectly fine fellow unpacking these beautiful old drums but he has basically zero knowledge about drums from that era. For example: when there’s a lightbulb inside of a drum, it’s not there just because it’s cool or for visual effect; you plugged it in if there’s a humidity problem. Calf skins are high maintenance in heavy humidity areas, I guess like Tennessee might be? So in order for the drum to remain tight and crisp-sounding, they would heat up snare drums and bass drums with a lightbulb inside before performance time. Not sure if they kept the lights turned on while playing, but that is definitely the reason for the lightbulb inside the drum (the first “plug in” effect??? Ha ha ....). My first drums as a child were a 1920s Ludwig tenor drum (parade drum) and a medium-sized pit or orchestral bass drum. The bass drum had old originalcalf skins and a lightbulb was set up inside the drum with a wire leading out through the vent hole. This fellow was an old professional orchestra percussionist just outside New York City. He was selling his timpani too, and my mom was a classical fanatic, and was wondering if we should grab those old hand-crank tuning timps - I thought they were amazing but wasn’t really interested. I just wanted to be Ringo and Charlie Watts and Ginger Baker - I was putting together a drum set piece by piece. With used antique gear.
Way back then drummers used to sit in during silent movies and great sound effect with their kits. That's more than likely why he has all the bells and noise makers. As for the Tom Tom originally the drum was just a Chinese hand drum.
Incredible! Wow, what an amazing example of an iconic drum… hard to imagine there are many out there, never mind in that condition. Thank you for sharing this.
I really liked the way the video ended. This beauty deserves a place in a museum. Really amazing how humanity can create such artful artifacts and its really nice to see how you guys did such a great restoration with it. I wonder... what its going to be the destiny of this piece of history. Is it going to be played or only display for everyone to enjoy?
Percussion instruments this old are just not going to stand up to being performed on or transported. Most calf skin heads that old are rotten or, at best, weak. Better to preserve it in a museum like Jim's, prominently displayed in the front window. I got to see this kit a couple of weeks ago. It's a doozy. Impressive.
@manusouful @@GeorgeLawrence24 *Ludwig®/Conn Selmer still manufactures the sizes, so the kit can be re-created for the most part.* 26" x 14" Legacy Mahogany kick (LLB546), NOS Super-400 14" x 6.5" tube-lug (LM411T), and the current Atlas kick pedal. Evans®/D'Addario® dual BD26CT's on kick, B14CT/S14GEN20 on snare.. Gibraltar/Drum Workshop builds a compatible trap table, but I'm not so sure about a hangar for an Avedis Zildjian® Suspended 16"/40cm. (Unfortunately, Conn Selmer Inc. has discontinued new-build Super Ludwigs, but the P70 balanced strainer is still supported with replacement parts.)
Beautiful! I love that he used those "few extra dollars" to "put food on the table" in those very trying times. I was hoping for a sound check, but this is still great imagining not only the music but the people who came to dance and have a few hours of enjoyment while the band played!
Funny that this kit dates to 1928...that's when my Mom was born. Four years later they bought her a piano. We just did a house clearing and gave the piano to a young piano student. So if that old relic is still being played, surely you can give this thing a wack. Come on, hit that sucker already!
You can hear the little hand cymbals (shown at 3:17) played by Zutty Singleton on Monday Date by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Seven. They didn't let drummers play the full kit back then for fear of the bass drum vibrating the cutting needle off the acetate disc so drummers played their trap instruments like hand cymbals or like Sonny Greer in Duke Ellington's The Mooch where he played the hell out of the temple blocks throughout the song. Cool Kit, I'd give my left kidney for it!
The badge will tell you the year of the drum. I have one similar. Its a 1936 Ludwig Continental orchestra 10 pc set. I love it. I play it all the time. Remember: Like a vintage car you have to use it every so often. It was made to be played.
I was chillin' with one of these Black Beauty snare drums when I worked in the vintage instrument room at the Interlochen Academy library transferring reel to reel tape recordings to digital files
"Traps" - The word "trap set" comes from the term "Contraption" used to describe the drums and stands which drummers from the early 20th century would use. Some would stand behind a bass drum sitting on the floor and use pedals to operate them while they had tables set up around them with wood blocks and other percussion instruments. In those days it was closer to being an orchestral percussionist rather than the typical drummer we think of in rock bands today.
They used to have light bulbs inside the Bass Drum in order to back light the front Reso Head, which was usually painted with something (like palm trees, setting sun, etc.). Thanks for sharing it.
That was pre hi-hat days. It would be a few more years until Gene Krupa would move his low-hats up so he could hit them with his sticks, and the rest is history.
3:35 the phrase 'trap set' is actually short form for what the other musicians were calling, what we now know as the modern drum set up, simply a ''contraption'' .. trap set is obviously a short form.. and evolved into drum set.. and instead of calling it a contraption.. people started referring to it as their 'kit' .
MOST BEAUTIFUL SNARE EVER AND ONE OF THE FIRST ONE IN ITS CATEGORY! AWESOME (THE SOUND WITH MODERN PLASTIC SKINS MUST BE AWESOME: TOO BAD THIS MODEL IS NOT MADE ANYMORE)! THX FOR THE SHARE! I ONLY SAW PHOTOS OF IT. I LOVED TOO THE ACCESORIES AND EVEN BEAUTIFUL VINTAGE FANCY BOXES LIKE SUIT CASES IN WOOD! NOT MENTIONING THE HAND PAINTING OF DRAGON ON TOM TOM NATURAL SKIN (IMAGINE THE WORK OR PRICE IF IT WOULD BE DONE TODAY)! THE VERY GOOD TASTE ART DECO ENGRAVING IS LEGENDARY (I SAY AS PRO DESIGNER AS AS DRUMSET HISTORIAN). JUST IMAGINE THAT THIS ANTIQUE DRUMSET PREDATES THE FIRST INDUSTRIAL MICROGROVE VYNIL RECORD FROM 20 YEARS! IT IS LIKE A PIECE OF LOST SOUNDS ARCHEOLOGICAL TRACK STILL HEARABLE BY HITING IT! AND ALL IS SO WELL CONSERVED FOR THE TIME (I GOT 50 YEARS MORE YOUNG MATERIAL WITH MORE ROTEN IRON!) PROBABLY THX TO THE BOXES!
Discovering that he's not going to hit it with a stick, and seeing him light it up like a weird drum taxedermist Christmas tree was one of the significant bummers of my life.
I may be wrong here but, wouldn't the light inside the snare be to keep the older calf heads tight and in tune, and not just for show? Anyway, that's an incredible trap set up!!
+memphisdrumshop *Back in the 1920's, pop drummers put tungsten lamps in their drums* to temperature-stabilize them, as natural-hide heads (and all the Chicago percussion manufacturers used calfskin batters and slunk snare resonants prior to 1957, when Remo and Evans put DuPont® Mylar® on counterhoops) are quite humidity-sensitive. This Super-Ludwig Black Beauty (as manufactured by Ludwig & Ludwig) packs individual brasswound cables on a direct ancestor of today's Ludwig/Conn Selmer P70 balanced snare strainer; concert band drummers would use six turns of twisted sheep intestine on the Super-Ludwig.
I hope he unplugged that light because the calf head will catch on fire. One of my teachers, the late Charlie Owen Principal percussion of the Philadelphia Orchestra forgot to unplug his before a concert and the whole head burned up!!
+357pick *That's a case where a dimmer would be of use.* With today's battery-sipping thermometers to monitor the inside of the drum, a variable transformer can control the heat applied.
You guys need to relax about instrument respect. You do know drums are hit millions of times with sticks on purpose. Even the foot pedal is STEPPED on its whole life. He didn't set it on fire. What do you guys use feathers for brushes?
This is the coolest drum unboxing video ever!! It’s like a time capsule
This isn't vintage, this is an artifact that should be in a museum.
That is just beautiful! I can't imagine that there's another kit of that age, anywhere, that's been kept in that condition, and exactly as it was in the catalogue. It's a privilege seeing it, even on a computer screen.
Ah, back when "made in china" made it cooler
make in china :)
That snare drum is a work of art!! Amazing quality, especially considering how old it is!
There is amazing quality in lots of "old" things. That snare drum is a great example. Quality is something that transcends technology.
age isn't a reference to quality. thats the golden age of engineering and design. the 1911 pistol is still viable after more than 109 years... music was in its infancy then, but that snare with modern wires, would sound awesome.
169.50 may not sound like much, but in 1928, that came out to about $2,365.50 in todays value! wow
and today would be $2,419!
How much is it worth now? $25,365?
lol i just did the same calculation! it's a deluxe model though, so it falls in line with todays price's! Maybe even a bargain, ie Gretsch Brooklyn Standard Set Mahagony = about $3000. Great traps kit though, price aside an' all!
A top of the line kit for that era. And that snare alone is probably worth 20,000 because of the shape it's in.
Prolly a milly
Amazing that the whole kit has stayed together for so many years. Nice!
Thats a really wonderful set. It needs to be in a museum.
It was great to see how they were stored in such compact manner as well as their catalogue entry. That snare had me salivating and the provenance story at the end was icing on the cake.
Wow, what an absolute beautiful find! The drums and THOSE CASES! This is about the coolest thing I've seen in years!
I can't stop reviewing this video. It is such a historical treasure to have these items- The Ludwig Super-Professional Drum set!
The power cable was for a light that drummers would have in the bass drum to warm up the goatskin heads prior to playing.
we saw him plug it in and light up the snare.
...Was just wondering if it served for something like that... interesting - but, are you certain of that? I ask because I'm thinking if they warmed the drum this way then turned it off to play (or I'd imagine the bulb would pop pretty quick) then the drum would be cooling off fairly dramatically throughout the set? ..And get pulled way out of tune as a result. After playing a little with a calfskin kit I picked up I'd imagine this would be making an already temperamental tuning job a lot more awkward.
It's my understanding the bulb was more of a humidity control than a strict temperature control. Steamy clubs + playing caused the calf-skin to go slack. Drummers retightened the skins by drying them out. Or so I've read.
definitely the lights are to warm up skins in cold weather. Skins do not perform well in cold temperatures, and the grandfather was gigging in Nebraska, it gets cold there.
Kent Aberle never knew that!
I have never seen a old snare drum like that. I didn't know they made Black Beauties that long ago. The copper hoops and cat gut snares, absolutely amazing. Y'all are lucky to be able to play with it.
That was AMAZING! To see that not only was the entire kit together, but it had been added onto with various traps! It was like finally opening up a time capsule!
I know this was 6 years ago, but finding a set complete with all the traps is amazing....Yes a Black Beauty snare drum....Priceless!!!!
Someone else did the dollar value from 1928 compared to today, so that kit was about the same cost as a pro Ludwig kit these days (for the same pieces). Awesome!
About $2800 in 2022
Simply wonderful drums and an even better background story. Priceless.
I'm not a drummer but I appreciate and love old things. I also cringed every time he tossed one of those components onto the table or back in the box.
I just about cried when he pulled that snare out
I CRIED WHEN HE DIDNT PLAY IT
Seems like a perfectly fine fellow unpacking these beautiful old drums but he has basically zero knowledge about drums from that era. For example: when there’s a lightbulb inside of a drum, it’s not there just because it’s cool or for visual effect; you plugged it in if there’s a humidity problem. Calf skins are high maintenance in heavy humidity areas, I guess like Tennessee might be? So in order for the drum to remain tight and crisp-sounding, they would heat up snare drums and bass drums with a lightbulb inside before performance time. Not sure if they kept the lights turned on while playing, but that is definitely the reason for the lightbulb inside the drum (the first “plug in” effect??? Ha ha ....).
My first drums as a child were a 1920s Ludwig tenor drum (parade drum) and a medium-sized pit or orchestral bass drum. The bass drum had old originalcalf skins and a lightbulb was set up inside the drum with a wire leading out through the vent hole. This fellow was an old professional orchestra percussionist just outside New York City. He was selling his timpani too, and my mom was a classical fanatic, and was wondering if we should grab those old hand-crank tuning timps - I thought they were amazing but wasn’t really interested. I just wanted to be Ringo and Charlie Watts and Ginger Baker - I was putting together a drum set piece by piece. With used antique gear.
Hi Greg,,,yes he even seemed more bothered about the dust on his hands...for me it would have been like opening king tuts tomb...
Way back then drummers used to sit in during silent movies and great sound effect with their kits. That's more than likely why he has all the bells and noise makers. As for the Tom Tom originally the drum was just a Chinese hand drum.
Just found this fascinating piece of drum history. Thank you.
All I can say is WOW! I would loved to hear that snare.
Jetty Local PLEASE. Haha
Incredible! Wow, what an amazing example of an iconic drum… hard to imagine there are many out there, never mind in that condition. Thank you for sharing this.
I really liked the way the video ended. This beauty deserves a place in a museum. Really amazing how humanity can create such artful artifacts and its really nice to see how you guys did such a great restoration with it. I wonder... what its going to be the destiny of this piece of history. Is it going to be played or only display for everyone to enjoy?
Percussion instruments this old are just not going to stand up to being performed on or transported. Most calf skin heads that old are rotten or, at best, weak. Better to preserve it in a museum like Jim's, prominently displayed in the front window. I got to see this kit a couple of weeks ago. It's a doozy. Impressive.
@manusouful @@GeorgeLawrence24 *Ludwig®/Conn Selmer still manufactures the sizes, so the kit can be re-created for the most part.* 26" x 14" Legacy Mahogany kick (LLB546), NOS Super-400 14" x 6.5" tube-lug (LM411T), and the current Atlas kick pedal. Evans®/D'Addario® dual BD26CT's on kick, B14CT/S14GEN20 on snare.. Gibraltar/Drum Workshop builds a compatible trap table, but I'm not so sure about a hangar for an Avedis Zildjian® Suspended 16"/40cm. (Unfortunately, Conn Selmer Inc. has discontinued new-build Super Ludwigs, but the P70 balanced strainer is still supported with replacement parts.)
Beautiful! I love that he used those "few extra dollars" to "put food on the table" in those very trying times. I was hoping for a sound check, but this is still great imagining not only the music but the people who came to dance and have a few hours of enjoyment while the band played!
Funny that this kit dates to 1928...that's when my Mom was born. Four years later they bought her a piano. We just did a house clearing and gave the piano to a young piano student. So if that old relic is still being played, surely you can give this thing a wack. Come on, hit that sucker already!
This is wonderful. Thank you for posting this video. What a fantastic job you have!
so,so cool.....very nice for the drum shop to put it up on display...beautiful !!!
Hello Mr Memphis, make a video where we hear the drums, thanks.
I can't be the only one riled up that we didn't get to hear these babies! I understand why we didn't, but I would have loved to hear them.
You are right - you're not the only one :)
I'd love to hear what those brass snares sound like. Great vid!
Wow, what a great video. Some really cool pieces of drum history right there.
Too Cool! LOVE Memphis Drum !!! Hi from D-Burg
the light bulb heats the calf skin heads to make them playable under damp conditions...
Wow. Gut snares and everything. I have played such drums. Beautiful.
You can hear the little hand cymbals (shown at 3:17) played by Zutty Singleton on Monday Date by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Seven. They didn't let drummers play the full kit back then for fear of the bass drum vibrating the cutting needle off the acetate disc so drummers played their trap instruments like hand cymbals or like Sonny Greer in Duke Ellington's The Mooch where he played the hell out of the temple blocks throughout the song. Cool Kit, I'd give my left kidney for it!
This drumkit is a absolutely beautifull, great treasure.
The badge will tell you the year of the drum. I have one similar. Its a 1936 Ludwig Continental orchestra 10 pc set.
I love it. I play it all the time. Remember: Like a vintage car you have to use it every so often. It was made to be played.
That length of flex is typically for the heater lamp inside the kick drum to keep the skin tensioned.
Oh whoa it's got a heated snare!
I was chillin' with one of these Black Beauty snare drums when I worked in the vintage instrument room at the Interlochen Academy library transferring reel to reel tape recordings to digital files
$169.50 in 1928 is $2,365.48 in 2017
I had a 1921 Washburn banjo with goatskin Head , has a very warm sound.
"Traps" - The word "trap set" comes from the term "Contraption" used to describe the drums and stands which drummers from the early 20th century would use. Some would stand behind a bass drum sitting on the floor and use pedals to operate them while they had tables set up around them with wood blocks and other percussion instruments. In those days it was closer to being an orchestral percussionist rather than the typical drummer we think of in rock bands today.
They used to have light bulbs inside the Bass Drum in order to back light the front Reso Head, which was usually painted with something (like palm trees, setting sun, etc.). Thanks for sharing it.
I believe the light in the snare was to dry out the calf heads in humid weather.
That was pre hi-hat days. It would be a few more years until Gene Krupa would move his low-hats up so he could hit them with his sticks, and the rest is history.
The light was for heat to keep the calf heads from detuning
3:35 the phrase 'trap set' is actually short form for what the other musicians were calling, what we now know as the modern drum set up, simply a ''contraption'' .. trap set is obviously a short form.. and evolved into drum set.. and instead of calling it a contraption.. people started referring to it as their 'kit' .
Trap-set or trap-case comes from "contraption" because back then kits were rigged together with a bunch of different items.
Wow, was very worried we would hear someone play the thing, thank god no one did!!!
Grand Island, NE is my hometown! So cool to see this.
Very beautifull and really vintage
What an amazing video. Like watching Indiana Jones discover the Lost Ark!
$169 was a LOT of money in 1928, I found the average salary in 1928 was 92 cents per hour
Beautiful drum set!
'You can get this exact trap kit only at Mephisdrumshop.com, and these exact cymbals only at Mycymbal.com'
MOST BEAUTIFUL SNARE EVER AND ONE OF THE FIRST ONE IN ITS CATEGORY! AWESOME (THE SOUND WITH MODERN PLASTIC SKINS MUST BE AWESOME: TOO BAD THIS MODEL IS NOT MADE ANYMORE)! THX FOR THE SHARE! I ONLY SAW PHOTOS OF IT.
I LOVED TOO THE ACCESORIES AND EVEN BEAUTIFUL VINTAGE FANCY BOXES LIKE SUIT CASES IN WOOD!
NOT MENTIONING THE HAND PAINTING OF DRAGON ON TOM TOM NATURAL SKIN (IMAGINE THE WORK OR PRICE IF IT WOULD BE DONE TODAY)!
THE VERY GOOD TASTE ART DECO ENGRAVING IS LEGENDARY (I SAY AS PRO DESIGNER AS AS DRUMSET HISTORIAN).
JUST IMAGINE THAT THIS ANTIQUE DRUMSET PREDATES THE FIRST INDUSTRIAL MICROGROVE VYNIL RECORD FROM 20 YEARS!
IT IS LIKE A PIECE OF LOST SOUNDS ARCHEOLOGICAL TRACK STILL HEARABLE BY HITING IT!
AND ALL IS SO WELL CONSERVED FOR THE TIME (I GOT 50 YEARS MORE YOUNG MATERIAL WITH MORE ROTEN IRON!) PROBABLY THX TO THE BOXES!
'Traps' is short for 'contraptions' (according to Daniel Glass).
I love his history of drumming videos.
I think that light in the snare drum is to add warmth to remove moisture from the calf head...
You must be kidding me! That is so beautiful!
I just had a light bulb moment on what to do with my old CB snare drum!
Alexander Jamieson throw it in the garbage?
Put a lightbulb in it, dummy.
Chris L
Digging the garbage idea
that's not a hihat ! that's a hi- *HAND* aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAAHHA *DIES*
nicely done.
Ba-dum bum!
GatoPaint RIP
**two drums and a cymbal fall of a cliff**
Discovering that he's not going to hit it with a stick, and seeing him light it up like a weird drum taxedermist Christmas tree was one of the significant bummers of my life.
I may be wrong here but, wouldn't the light inside the snare be to keep the older calf heads tight and in tune, and not just for show? Anyway, that's an incredible trap set up!!
Wow that snare is beautiful.
Those look like the drums they were playing in that early New Orleans-style jazz like King Olivier's and the Dixie Land band.
Wonderful !
putting a lamp inside the snare was to give it a higher tuning. the head drums were in skin and with the focus the tuning was matted in its exact tone
+memphisdrumshop *Back in the 1920's, pop drummers put tungsten lamps in their drums* to temperature-stabilize them, as natural-hide heads (and all the Chicago percussion manufacturers used calfskin batters and slunk snare resonants prior to 1957, when Remo and Evans put DuPont® Mylar® on counterhoops) are quite humidity-sensitive. This Super-Ludwig Black Beauty (as manufactured by Ludwig & Ludwig) packs individual brasswound cables on a direct ancestor of today's Ludwig/Conn Selmer P70 balanced snare strainer; concert band drummers would use six turns of twisted sheep intestine on the Super-Ludwig.
That snare looks amazing!
That is just gorgeous!
my god thats amazing, we've come a long way.
I hope he unplugged that light because the calf head will catch on fire. One of my teachers, the late Charlie Owen Principal percussion of the Philadelphia Orchestra forgot to unplug his before a concert and the whole head burned up!!
+357pick *That's a case where a dimmer would be of use.* With today's battery-sipping thermometers to monitor the inside of the drum, a variable transformer can control the heat applied.
Just beautiful.
Very cool thank you for sharing very cool
looks more like 1912 than 1928 ! Its fantastic!
This was like stepping into the past. Way cool!
Great Jim thanks so much for posting, Gregg thank you very much for sharing with us all!! . Enjoyed!! All Good Things.
Did snares have a blow hole back then? Looks like the electrical cord was run through there.
I'm loving it!!!
Worth more than my life
Is that blue Paiste colorsound an 18" ride? I'd like to buy that, please!
we can't hear it :(
WOW. Tks.! This is History of music.
That set is incredible. I'd be crapping myself unboxing that stuff. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed like he was a bit rough handling some of the stuff.
Look at all those colorful Paiste's
I'll take some of those Paiste's. Over there lol I want to see Memphis drum shop someday
Behold the mighty TRIANGLE!
169.50 in 1928 is 3,014.59 in 2023. That's crazy!!!!
I have one of those.
got it back in 67.
That’s gotta be expensive. Beautiful.
You guys need to relax about instrument respect. You do know drums are hit millions of times with sticks on purpose. Even the foot pedal is STEPPED on its whole life. He didn't set it on fire. What do you guys use feathers for brushes?
Nicholas S. Thank you, I needed that.
Right..bc they age and condition of it had nothing to do with it. Tfoh.
Amazing! Think about shelling out $169.50 during the depression! Man that's trust and faith. Beautiful snare.
I'm returning mine to Sweetwater since I didn't get a light with mine.
this is awesome..
Take it easy with that stuff.
holy smokes, wow, sh**!! oh my god, what a find!! incredible!
Spectacular!
Incredible!!