Welcome to the Ludwig Supraphonic Snare Drum History web site! This site is dedicated to the Supra. It includes badges, history, catalogs and dating guides.

We have a massive collection of catalog scans and history that will help you determine which era snare drum is best for you. The majority of history is located on our vintage drum archive The Vintage Drum Guide. We have found through our research the the earliest of Supras were badged with the WFL badge and first listed in the 1960 catalog so the drum was around in 1959 or earlier. The Pre-Serial Transition Badge Era Ludwigs are the most desired drums because they originally came with a chrome over brass shell. I have had many of these drum sin my collection and always have at least one Supraphonic.

The Supra really is the "King of all snare drums" and has also been called the most recorded snare drum in history! It goes without saying that since Ludwig made 1000's of these drums that they would be the most recorded.

I have documentation from William F Ludwig II, an actual catalog that he wrote the production numbers in. This type of info will only be available to The Drum Experts Network of web sites.

So if you are here to determine if your Supraphonic is chrome over brass or Ludalloy read this article about the topic.

- The Drum Experts