Hi! I've had quite a few vintage Premier kits over the years but personally never seen an ink stamp! As for the accuracy of the dates, I'm not sure. I know that certainly when they had parts to use up because new ones were coming in, they would put drums together from different parts manufactured at different times. I don't think Premier serials are easy to trace this way as say, Slingerlands are. Mike Ellis would be your man though. You can reach him at Blenheim drums.

my late 71 mahogany shell- American sized- (took delivery Sept.1971)

Had, "international" Ink stamped inside a few of the shells (can't remember which) designating the (i believe) "entire set" , "international". (as if you couldn't tell ; )

That one long ink smudge in yours "Alloy"; look to see (when they arrive) that that was an "international" ink stamp.

That's all I got. Don't recall any other "ink" events. ; )

(see if I have an old Picture of the set. Owned from new 1971 to 1996 (when I traded them in (for a new XPK anniversary raised badge black and Gold set)

PD303 w/extra 14x14 FT. 14x22 8x12 8x14(tuna can affectionately "called") 14x14 16x16/ 2000 chrome parallel snare. I went to the store wanting Ludwigs and got talked into them@! Color: mahogany (no pun) duroplastic

Here are some photos of the 3 drums. All have several stamps inside, but all of the "green ink" stamps read (either) 23 or 25/79 (hard to tell first number). On one of the Premier FB pages, a few people wrote in to say that is a date stamp. The 23 or 25 (the first set of numbers) signify the week number (out of 52) the drum was manufactured, and the second number would be the year ( in my case, 1979). So, around May or June of 1979. Badge #'s mean nothing according to all who replied. Does anyone concur with this theory?

Yes I always heard badge number were random for INSURANCE purposes..in this (Premier) case..

You're lucky you got the birch. Stronger, I would think than the softer mahog..

Denser, stiffer..Brighter.

Thanks my friend!

I totally agree with you.

My resonator kit had the exact dates stamped inside the shell when I removed the inner liner.

Some snare drums have 4 numbers which indeed means week/year.

All of my 80's and 90's snare drums have them.

My Prem 2000 COA has four digits as well, namely '4238'.

The drum is from the 70's, as far as I know. So your indication can't be valid for Prem snare drums made earlier than 1980 or so ...? :confused:

Ralf

I think you mean the digits stamped on the "P" badge...

They are useless because they do not refer to any date or year.

What I meant is the 4 digits on the inside of the shell. With that being said, I have shells which show 2 digits, this is only the year.

I do own some snare drums which only show 1 digit. In this case I have no clue whatsoever.