1963 Ludwig Galaxy Pearl Superbeat Set

I hope some of you made it to the Chicago Drum Show. I didn't make it this year, but I hope to make it next year. I have seen some photos and It looks like it was a really great show. Drum shows are a great opportunity to meet other collectors, see some beautiful drums, and learn about the history of the vintage drums we love so much. Besides all that, it's a great place to buy a vintage set from people who really know their stuff. Sometimes when you buy a snare or set online there is a chance that the drums have been "monkeyed" with. There could be unrevealed alterations, modifications and repairs. Some guys are really good at piecing drums together and passing them off as untouched originals. It's buyer beware when you buy from someone you don't know on the internet. I have bought some nice drums this way, but I have also been burned.

I bought the set I am featuring this month from David Keith, a well known professional drummer from Alabama. I met him through my good friend Bill Pace. David owns a recording studio, Gintown Studios in Graysville, Alabama. He plays for some major recording and touring stars. I have bought some beautiful drums from David over the years, and I count him as a very good friend. I could write a complete article about him, and might do that sometime in the near future. We met up at Bill's house to make a deal for this set and a few other drums that David was selling. I had told Bill that I was very interested in a Galaxy pearl set. He probably told David he had a sucker ready to pay big bucks for a Galaxy set. I'm just kidding about that, but Bill has a way of making drum deals happen. I had bought a nice six lug Pioneer snare on E-Bay and had been looking for a set for some time. A Ludwig Club Date set had been up for bids on E-Bay, but I was unable to get them. Galaxy Pearl is a very rare finish, as you know, and the prices reflect that when they come up for sale. This finish was only available for a couple of years, so there is a very limited number of these sets out there. The badges on all these drums are pre-serial number Keystones. 

The drum sizes are, bass drum 20X14, floor tom 16X16, and mounted tom 13X9. A nice addition to the set is a Jazz Festival snare that has been recovered with authentic Galaxy Pearl wrap. Its hard to tell it's a re-wrap because it is a very good job. I have the matching original mint Pioneer to place with the kit also. The interiors of the toms are painted white, but the interior of the bass drum is factory unfinished. The floor tom leg mounts were changed on the set. The old threaded ones were bad to strip out. The bass drum's original fold out spurs were changed to disappearing spurs. I guess the original owner preferred the this type of spurs. When I bought the set from David, the original inlays were missing on the bass drum hoops. This is something you have to deal with when buying old sets. I had been trying to get some inlays for some time and was using silver sparkle inlays while I was searching. Fellow writer Mark Markowitz told me he had gottenLudwig to make him a new set of hoops for one of his two Galaxy sets. I contacted Mark Tirabassi at Hubbard Music Store to ask for some help in getting new Ludwig hoops with Galaxy Pearl inlays. I want to give him and the Ludwig Co. two big thumbs up for proving the beautiful new hoops for this set. They really make the set look better. I've said it before and I'll say it again, drum people are so much nicer than guitar people. It's just a fact.