WFL bought the Ludwig name back from Conn in 1955 and changed the name of the company back to Ludwig pretty soon thereafter but the drum line was still called WFL for roughly another 3 years until sometime in 1958 when they started using the Transition badge, Thereafter they still continued to use stocks of WFL tagged parts until they were all gone. In the case of die cast parts they apparently continued to make new castings from the old WFL dies until the dies were worn out (casting dies were expensive to make) and needed to be replaced and only at that time would they change the logo over to "Ludwig". So, for example, they continued to churn out WFL logo'ed snare stands for years after the brand changeover (I think they were still doing so until nearly the 1970's). The Speed King apparently was changed over quite a bit earlier than that, perhaps because it was a higher profile item that they wanted the new brand on, or maybe it was simply a lucky coincidence that the die was in need of replacement sooner.Ludwig doesn't seem to have wasted anything when it came to parts, tools, etc. That also includes catalog artwork, so the WFL version of the Speed King was still pictured in the catalog after the new version had been adopted along with many other out of date illustrations. I think it was the 1971 catalog where Ludwig finally redid the artwork on (almost) everything. Of course by then they had adopted the newer "block" logo, but again a whole lot of product continued to have the previous script logo cast into it.
Right. My copy, which is in very good condition, has the Ludwig script logo and according to the person I got it from it was purchased in the mid to late ''60s. The grey posts are almost like new with no chipping and no pitting on the chrome. It was clearly lightly used and we'll taken care of. While certainly not in mint condition it looks much better than all but a few examples I've seen on eBay. After some research it appears there is no obvious way to determine a particular year or even period of manufacture other than the change in the footboard. Of course, the current version has a few obvious physical differences including the black posts and changes to the footboard..
