Help me read Ludwig serial numbers (2024)

Radio King said:

I don't think there was a specific reason for the random serial numbers Ludwig chose back then, but they can help to identify the years the vintage drums were produced, to an extent. That said, according to Richard Gier's excellent serial dating guide, your Acro is likely from early 1984.

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O very cool that’s the year I was born. Now how do you go about figuring that out

bassanddrum84 said:

O very cool that’s the year I was born. Now how do you go about figuring that out

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Richard E. Gier (KCDrumdad here on DFO) published an informative book back in 2013: "Serial Number Based Dating Guides for Vintage Ludwig Drums". I bought my copy about 7 years ago. Here's a thread about it:

There's nothing to " read". There is no "code" buried within the numbers. Ludwig started putting numbered badges on drums in late 1963, presumably starting with #00001 and the numbers continued to climb from there. They were applied more or less randomly and Ludwig kept no records of what number went on what drum. The numbers were apparently added at the behest of the dealers to make each drum "unique" within their inventories (possibly for tax or insurance purposes) but as far as Ludwig was concerned it was just something extra they had to do. They didn't see any reason to add another monumental chore to that by trying to keep track on those numbers. They did do a good job of insuring that the numbers that their badge maker was applying did continue to increase numerically through the years in a linear fashion. Although, a worker assembling a drum usually just randomly grabbed a badge out of a bin during production. Due to this, and adding new badges to the bin before it was completely empty, the badges on a "factory" drum set might be thousands off from each other.

In the past 20 or so years people have become more interested in using these numbers as a method to date older drums. Various individuals began to collect serial numbers cross referenced to date stamps inside the same drums (those that had date stamps). With enough data this can create a rough timeline of what numbers were being used when, at least up until the point where they stopped applying date stamps (early 1970s). From that point it becomes partially a matter of extrapolation and also comparing certain construction features with known points when those features first turned up.

The most complete and largest data pool is within the aforementioned booklet by Rick Gier. Well worth the price of admission. The information at Ludwig's website is pretty inaccurate as are most of the free online resources (unless they are quoting Rick's book...which is a copyright violation). Even Rick is careful to point out that using the serial number to date a drum is not very precise. You can figure out when your drum might have been made within about a year spread. Even with a date stamp I'm not sure anyone has determined with 100% certainty when they were stamped in the production process...when the shell itself was made (possibly months before final assembly) or when the drum was completed. Some of these details seem to be lost to the mists of time.

Can age my Monroe hammered bronze Supra? It’s stamped “123” several places inside.

bassanddrum84 said:

No I get that but then I look them up it will say for instance 549XXX – 665372 so how does a serial number fit in that?

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Sorry to be late to this thread. The serial number range you quote is from Rob Cook's work, which has been copied by many, usually without permission and without giving Rob appropriate credit. Ludwig even misstates the ranges for the late 1970s on its website, which really does not help. I go into great detail how the various serial number based dating guides are derived. In the case of Rob Cook's table, Rob used actual reports of drums with date stamps and serial numbers to develop approximate serial number ranges which are associated with particular date ranges. A few collectors provided Rob with information which supplemented information that Rob had gathered. Some of those reports were erroneous, which impacts his efforts. The numbers in Rob's chart are approximations, yet many read the tables without understanding how they were developed and seem to take them as absolute truths.

As K.O. points out, there is some amount of variation that is present which results from a number of factors, including the non-sequential issuance of badges and possibly the nature of the date stamping and storing of shells by Ludwig.

Could this Luddy be made in the 80’s?

It has an internal damper.

TheDrummerFromAmsterdam said:

Could this Luddy be made in the 80’s?

View attachment 665161View attachment 665162

It has an internal damper.

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That badge started in 1985ish. I'm not sure at what point Ludwig stopped installing the internal Mufflers as standard equipment but this drum would date from between 1985 to whenever that was.

K.O. said:

That badge started in 1985ish. I'm not sure at what point Ludwig stopped installing the internal Mufflers as standard equipment but this drum would date from between 1985 to whenever that was.

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Thank you!

My year of birth is 1985 so that would be cool if it was indeed from that year too.

But its good already that its not a “modern” model.

So I have done a fair amount of study on Ludwig serial numbers myself. Mostly studying vintage ones and ones that relate an actual date stamp inside. I have never really looked all that closely to modern NC Ludwig numbers but I am fairly surprised to see they almost all start with a three? I bought my classic maple set in 2012 as I custom ordered them in January 2012. They are actually stamped May of 2012 and all the numbers are sequential starting with 315. I never really paid much attention but as I look at more and more modern classic maple drums, I see a ton of them that start with 313,314,315. Almost every one of them start with a three. Anyone else notice this?

Just curious.

wflkurt said:

So I have done a fair amount of study on Ludwig serial numbers myself. Mostly studying vintage ones and ones that relate an actual date stamp inside. I have never really looked all that closely to modern NC Ludwig numbers but I am fairly surprised to see they almost all start with a three? I bought my classic maple set in 2012 as I custom ordered them in January 2012. They are actually stamped May of 2012 and all the numbers are sequential starting with 315. I never really paid much attention but as I look at more and more modern classic maple drums, I see a ton of them that start with 313,314,315. Almost every one of them start with a three. Anyone else notice this?

Just curious.

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To move on to the serials starting with a 4 would require moving a lot of drums. 7 digits would take a million drums to get out of the 3's...right?

wflkurt said:

So I have done a fair amount of study on Ludwig serial numbers myself. Mostly studying vintage ones and ones that relate an actual date stamp inside. I have never really looked all that closely to modern NC Ludwig numbers but I am fairly surprised to see they almost all start with a three? I bought my classic maple set in 2012 as I custom ordered them in January 2012. They are actually stamped May of 2012 and all the numbers are sequential starting with 315. I never really paid much attention but as I look at more and more modern classic maple drums, I see a ton of them that start with 313,314,315. Almost every one of them start with a three. Anyone else notice this?

Just curious.

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This is 3146772 btw.