Ludwig acrolite black Galaxy 6.5"

O

oliverlowder

Junior Member
Hello people of drummerworld!

long time reader of the forum but only just taken the plunge and joined, so I apologise if I'm posting this in the wrong place..

Anyway, I've been looking for a 14x6.5 black Galaxy acrolite over here in the UK for a while and finally managed to order one from A dealer, only to receive a call shortly after celebrating to inform me they sold their last one and Ludwig have now discontinued them so I will have to be refunded :-(

whilst looking I realised that it seems to apply to acrolites in general. I've seen plenty of guys on here say they've picked one up for around $50 on Craigslist (5" depth) which frustrates me so much.

Is it that people love these drums so much that they never want to sell? Does anybody else find this to be the case, or am I just way out of luck. They really seem to be hard to get a hold of in the UK!
 
In the US, the Acrolite was pretty much the de facto high school snare from 1975-1985. They are as plentiful as "Frampton Comes Alive" albums. When we find $50 acrolites, they have been in closets and garages for 30 years. I purchased mine for $53 on shop goodwill.com .

I did up a quick spreadsheet as I wanted to see If I could buy 10 of them @ 100, ship to the UK, and resell them for a profit. After shipping, duties, insurance, and taxes, I'd have to sell them for $250 in order to make $200 on the lot. Too much work, too little return. Not to mention I'd have to find a sympathetic seller in the UK, and actually sell the things. Too much work, too little return.

My recommendation is that you talk to anyone you know that is making a trip to the states and have them pick one up for you while they are here.
 
KamaK said:
In the US, the Acrolite was pretty much the de facto high school snare from 1975-1985. They are as plentiful as "Frampton Comes Alive" albums. When we find $50 acrolites, they have been in closets and garages for 30 years. I purchased mine for $53 on shop goodwill.com .

I did up a quick spreadsheet as I wanted to see If I could buy 10 of them @ 100, ship to the UK, and resell them for a profit. After shipping, duties, insurance, and taxes, I'd have to sell them for $250 in order to make $200 on the lot. Too much work, too little return. Not to mention I'd have to find a sympathetic seller in the UK, and actually sell the things. Too much work, too little return.

My recommendation is that you talk to anyone you know that is making a trip to the states and have them pick one up for you while they are here.
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Thanks for the advice. It's definitely crossed my mind but unfortunately nobody I know is crossing the pond in the near future.

Might just have to keep an eye out on Craigslist for one and if I find
One, contact the seller to see if uk shipping would be a possibility.
 
Anyone who lists an Acrolite knows what they have.

People who search for Acrolite are plentiful, and help drive the price up.

Search Fleabay for "snare drum" or "drum" to find those advertised by people who don't know what they have.

About a year ago I bought a very tidy Blackrolite for $100 with a Ludwig backpack and a mute pad. There was a stand too, but I asked the seller not to bother sending that.
 
JustJames said:
Anyone who lists an Acrolite knows what they have.

People who search for Acrolite are plentiful, and help drive the price up.

Search Fleabay for "snare drum" or "drum" to find those advertised by people who don't know what they have.

About a year ago I bought a very tidy Blackrolite for $100 with a Ludwig backpack and a mute pad. There was a stand too, but I asked the seller not to bother sending that.
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Hey,
Yeah I tried the usually tricks searching with spelling mistakes etc hoping to maybe find a listing where the seller wasn't too aware of what they had. Did find one on music go round well priced and it should in fact be arriving with me today after having it shipped from the US.

Still wish it was as easy to find one close to home that I could collect for around £100 but oh well!
 
KamaK said:
I did up a quick spreadsheet as I wanted to see If I could buy 10 of them @ 100, ship to the UK, and resell them for a profit. After shipping, duties, insurance, and taxes, I'd have to sell them for $250 in order to make $200 on the lot. Too much work, too little return. Not to mention I'd have to find a sympathetic seller in the UK, and actually sell the things. Too much work, too little return.
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If I ever do a tour or trip of Europe, I'm taking a couple of Luddy snares and selling them before I leave to recoup travel costs. I think I scored my Acro shell for like $20, no lugs though.
 
I was just thinking about this the other day......

Ludwig recently created a whole new line of metal snare drums based on the original Acrolite snare, and they call that line the Acro snare drum.

It is baffling to me that Ludwig has resurrected all the previous metal snares drums with a modern vibe, but for whatever reason they are not manufacturing the Blackrolite snare!!
 
Tamboreter said:
I think you already answered your own question.
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My point is that if you have winner products that are in demand, why wait so long to bring them back? They should have probably done this with BOTH the Acrolite and the Black Galaxy long ago.

Anyhow, I am not on the inside, and maybe I do not understand the sales/marketing behind the drum business. Who knows. Maybe they are maxed out on production capacity or some other reason. It is not just Ludwig. If I remember that correctly Pearl did that to their Sensitone snare drum lines.
 
My understanding is that the original Keystone Acrolite with bball bat muffler has always been more desirable than the Black Galaxy.
 
when Ludwig needs to expand out their mid rung snare line up they're not going to add another American sourced model; it will be an overseas product. To reintroduce the Blakrolite- a model despised bitd as 'slummin' it- almost as much as the 5/14 Acro- it will be a totally Taiwan based drum and I think they have a line for that already called Universal or something
@striker
I mean they could "sell" the Acro to a certain segment of drummer; To try and push the Blakrolite may just be a bridge Too Far
 
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jda said:
I mean they could "sell" the Acro to a certain segment of drummer; To try and push the Blakrolite may just be a bridge Too Far
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Agree. Pretty sure Ludwig knows their marketing territory after all these years. From what I understand, the Black Galaxy was never that popular. It was never a one up on the Acrolite, which was just a student level drum, marketed to fill that niche. Not necessarily bad, but it never stood as an equal to the Supra.
 
Good points by @jda and @Tamboreter

My understanding is that they tried to tame the ring in the Acrolite even more by applying that black coating and get a different sound out of an Aluminum shell. The used Black Galaxy snares seem to be more affordable than Acrolite, and there is no shortage of them. That says a lot about the supply and demand. I guess as it was pointed out it never reached the popularity of the Acrolite.

So, maybe in the room when they were deciding, they decided to release the new Acrolite (Acro line) only. Why bother with the black duck when you can make more money with the goose that lays a golden egg every day.
 
Just had a wild thought...

What if Ludwig created the Blackrolite because they had a large number of aluminum shells with blemishes? Instead of scrapping the shells, or flooding the market with b-stock Acrolites, they decided to make Lemonaid...

I have no idea if this is true. But this sort of thing has happened before. Gretsch, Ludwig, and Slingerland have all historically painted their shell interiors to hide blemishes. It's not that far-fetched to think they did this with the Blackrolite. :unsure:
 
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