Ringo Starr 1963 Ludwig 'Oyster Black Pearl' Drum Kit

The kit in the window

By spring 1963 the Beatles' debut album was climbing the charts and they needed better gear. Ringo Starr was still playing the mahogany Premier kit that had carried him through a Hamburg residency and two summer seasons at Butlins with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, before he joined the Beatles in August 1962.

Toward the end of April 1963, Starr and manager Brian Epstein visited Ivor Arbiter's Drum City on Shaftesbury Avenue in London. Accounts of what happened vary, but Starr's own memory is of love at first sight with a Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Downbeat kit in the window. 'I loved anything American,' he told the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. 'I said, "Oh great, look at this kit!"'

Epstein wanted a deal, and Arbiter, who was trying to establish Ludwig in Britain, recalled selling the kit at something like cost plus five percent, taking Starr's old Premier in part trade. Arbiter insisted that a Ludwig logo appear on the front bass drum head. When Epstein asked for the band's name too, Arbiter is said to have sketched a logo on the spot, with an oversized B and a dropped T to stress the 'Beat' in Beatles. A sign painter, Eddie Stokes, painted it on the head. It became the first of seven Beatles logo heads Starr used.

Ludwig, Chicago, 1963

The kit is a 1963 Ludwig Downbeat, made before Ludwig began fitting serial badges late that year. Its shells are three-ply mahogany, poplar and mahogany: a 12 by 8 inch rack tom and a 14 by 14 inch floor tom with white painted interiors, and a 20 by 14 inch bass drum with a clear-finished interior. The fittings are chrome Classic lugs, with 'baseball bat' tone-control mufflers in the toms.

When Starr bought it, the kit came with a 5 1/2 by 14 inch Jazz Festival snare in the same finish, the only drum with an internal date stamp, April 18, 1963. Starr kept that snare as his main Beatles snare, and it has never been part of the kit's sales.

Ludwig got more than it bargained for. The prominent logo on Starr's American-made kit gave the company such a burst of publicity that it became the dominant drum maker in North America for the next twenty years. The 2015 catalog put the turning point at Monday, February 10, 1964, the day after the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Nine months of Beatlemania

Drum City's manager, Gerry Evans, delivered the kit on Sunday, May 12, 1963, to the Alpha Television Studios in Birmingham, where the Beatles were taping Thank Your Lucky Stars. Starr used his old Premier for rehearsal and the new Ludwig for the recording that afternoon. From then until February 4, 1964, it was his only kit.

Its first recording session was at EMI on July 1, 1963, when the band cut 'She Loves You.' Released August 23, it became the first Beatles single to sell a million copies. The kit was on stage for the band's last performance at the Cavern Club on August 3, on Sunday Night at the London Palladium on October 13, a broadcast to 15 million viewers after which the British press coined the word Beatlemania, and at the Royal Variety Performance on November 4. Starr recorded the album With the Beatles on it, released November 22, along with 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'

It also went abroad: to Sweden in October 1963, and to Paris, where the Beatles played 18 days at the Olympia Theatre from January 16 to February 4, 1964. There, on January 29, they recorded the backing track for 'Can't Buy Me Love.' The last Olympia show was the kit's last public appearance. Starr flew to New York without it and took delivery of a second Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl kit for The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9.

The two sale catalogs count its television work differently, at about 20 appearances in 2015 and 17 in 2026. Both agree on more than 200 live shows.

From McCartney's farm to two auctions

Back in England, the second kit took over on stage, in the studio and on the set of A Hard Day's Night, and the first was retired or kept as a backup. In late 1969 and early 1970, Paul McCartney borrowed the bass drum and rack tom from this kit, combined with the floor tom and snare of Starr's second kit, to record his first solo album, McCartney. He removed the original logo head to muffle the bass drum with a blanket. He later took the drums to his farm studio in Scotland, where he and drummer Denny Seiwell rehearsed the new band Wings in July 1971, and Starr played the bass drum and rack tom in the video for McCartney's 1982 single 'Take It Away.'

The drums came back to Starr without the original logo head, which McCartney still has, and sat in London storage for decades. In 2013 and 2014 all five of Starr's Beatles kits were organized and documented, and this one was made complete with period-correct hardware and cymbals and a hand-painted replica of the first logo head.

Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach, sold more than 800 of their possessions in a three-day auction in Los Angeles from December 3 to 5, 2015, with part of the proceeds going to their Lotus Foundation. Estimated at $300,000 to $500,000, the kit sold to Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The sale record lists the price as $2,110,000; most news reports gave it as $2.2 million and called it a record for a drum kit. 'Finally, after 45 years, the Beatles are together again,' Irsay texted the Associated Press. It was described as the only Beatles drum kit ever to come to market.

Under Irsay the kit was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 'Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll' in 2019 and at the Rhythm! Discovery Center in Indianapolis from 2021 to 2022, and Starr played it at the Colts' practice facility on September 30, 2023. Irsay died on May 21, 2025. On March 12, 2026, the kit sold at auction in New York from his collection for $2,393,000, against an estimate of $1 million to $2 million.

What to look for

The kit is a three-piece 1963 Ludwig Downbeat in Oyster Black Pearl without serial badges. The original parts are the three shells, their lugs and tension rods, the tom and floor-tom hoops and heads, the bass drum's batter head and back hoop, spurs, cymbal holder and tom mount, which was modified during the Beatles years with a brass wingnut.

Some parts are not original, and both sale catalogs say so. The front bass drum hoop and its T-rods and claws are period-correct replacements, and the front logo head is a replica painted by Russ Lease, the Beatles drum head authority, from his research. The cymbals, stands, pedal and stool are period-correct pieces Starr gathered to match the 1963 setup. The original snare and the original logo head are not part of it.

The numbers

Service

May 12, 1963 to February 4, 1964, as Starr's only kit

Live performances

More than 200, across the UK, Ireland, Sweden and France

Studio recordings

More than 180, per the 2015 catalog

BBC radio

More than 160 songs across 28 broadcast episodes, per the 2015 catalog

Television

About 20 appearances (2015 catalog) or 17 (2026 catalog)

Singles recorded

'She Loves You,' 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'Can't Buy Me Love' (backing track)

Album recorded

With the Beatles (released November 22, 1963)

Timeline

1. Jul 7, 1940

   Richard Starkey, later Ringo Starr, is born in Liverpool.

2. Aug 18, 1962

   Starr plays his first show as a Beatle, replacing Pete Best.

3. Apr 1963

   Starr and Brian Epstein buy the Ludwig kit at Drum City in London.

4. May 12, 1963

   The kit is delivered to the Thank Your Lucky Stars taping in Birmingham and used that afternoon.

5. Jul 1, 1963

   First recording session with the kit: 'She Loves You' at EMI.

6. Aug 3, 1963

   The kit is played at the Beatles' last Cavern Club show.

7. Oct 13, 1963

   Sunday Night at the London Palladium; the press coins 'Beatlemania.'

8. Nov 4, 1963

   The Beatles play the Royal Variety Performance.

9. Feb 4, 1964

   Last show at the Olympia in Paris, the kit's final public appearance as Starr's main kit.

10. Feb 9, 1964

    The Beatles play The Ed Sullivan Show on Starr's second Ludwig kit.

11. 1970

    Paul McCartney's album McCartney is released, recorded partly on this kit's bass drum and rack tom.

12. Jul 1971

    McCartney and Denny Seiwell rehearse Wings on the drums in Scotland.

13. 2013

    Starr's five Beatles kits are organized and documented; this one is restored with period-correct parts.

14. Dec 4, 2015

    The kit sells at auction in Los Angeles to Jim Irsay.

15. Apr 8, 2019

    The kit goes on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 'Play It Loud' exhibition.

16. Sep 30, 2023

    Starr plays the kit at the Indianapolis Colts' practice facility.

17. May 21, 2025

    Jim Irsay dies.

18. Mar 12, 2026

    The kit sells at auction in New York from the Irsay collection for $2,393,000.

The world in 1963

• Jan 23, 1963

  Kim Philby defects to the Soviet Union from Beirut.

• Mar 22, 1963

  The Beatles release their debut album, Please Please Me.

• Mar 27, 1963

  The Beeching report calls for huge cuts to Britain's rail network.

• Jun 5, 1963

  John Profumo resigns as Secretary of State for War.

• Aug 8, 1963

  The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire.

• Oct 19, 1963

  Alec Douglas-Home becomes prime minister after Harold Macmillan resigns.

• Nov 23, 1963

  The first episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Ringo Starr 1963 Ludwig 'Oyster Black Pearl' Drum Kit is number 38 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (40 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Starr chose the kit partly because it was American: 'I loved anything American.'
• The famous dropped-T Beatles logo was reportedly sketched by the shop owner who sold Starr this kit, and the sign painter was paid five pounds to paint it.
• John Lennon joked on stage about the half-peeled Ludwig decal, introducing him as 'And on the Lu, Ringo!'
• Paul McCartney recorded his first solo album, including 'Maybe I'm Amazed,' partly on this kit's bass drum and rack tom.
• The original Beatles logo head from this kit is still with Paul McCartney.
• Starr did not take the kit to America; he played a second, identical-finish Ludwig on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• In 2023 Starr sat down at the kit again, at the Indianapolis Colts' practice facility.