Welcome to the Ludwig Black Beauty Snare Drum history web site! We get a lot of questions about the Ludwig Black Beauty and decided to create a web site with all of the history we have gathered over the years of research.

The De Luxe Drum was originally introduced in the 1920's as a special snare drum with options to have simulated gold finish and special shell engraving. In the 1930's it was called the Black Beauty snare drum.

Then in the mid-late 30's the drum was dropped from the catalogs and did not re-appear until 1977 when it was re-introduced. This is where we will focus with the web site, since more people own the newer Black Beauty snare drums.

We have a catalog and flyer time line for the Black Beauty which shows you the drums and shells and how they went from brass to bronze and back to brass.

The video in the player was taken by us at The Chicago Drum shows and shows you a little of how the hand engraving works on these drums. The engraver is John Aldridge and you can email him on his web site if you want a snare drum engraved.

Please let him know you found him by this web site. We want the drumming community to know we are out there promoting drums and drum history.

Please ask us any questions about your Ludwig Black Beauty Snare Drum!