Welcome to the VDF, the Atlas 1402 was in production from 1970-1981 and you would be hard pressed to tell the 70's from the 80's model.

I thought 80's Atlas stands had those HORRID gold BAR STOOL swivel tips on the bottom? Or,were those late 70's?

your talking about the swivel feet, I like those?Storm Trooper, actually they are hercules, not atlas.

I have an atlas snare stand with the swivel feet. The stand is stamped atlas, though I guess there could be chance that the bottom leg section was changed out?

I have a few also, but they are considered hercules, if they have swivel feet

Ok....there seems to be some confusion going on here......there were several styles of Atlas stands over the years. The original stands were flat legs (single brace if you will) with small rubber tips. The lower sections had basically a type of pipe clamp to hold the tube in place and the base folded up from the bottom with no wing screws to lock them in place. The next design was similar to the previous design and the base folded up the tube and was held in place with a wing screw. Then they came out with the tube legs in the mid 70's with the swivel feet. These WERE Atlas stands, NOT Hercules stands. Later when they changed to the large rubber feet and eliminated the "band clamp" on the bottom tube they renamed the series Hercules. Then to confuse things even more in the Atlas line, Ludwig came out with the Atlas II line in the early 80's, which was basically the newer Hercules design stands with flat single brace legs and large rubber tips.

History lesson over. Thank you I'll be here all week. :D

Great responses.....John Bonham used ATLAS stands, and in photos of him playing his kit they are quite distinctive. HERCULES stands have the obvious tubular legs, plastic "ludwig" wing screws and fat rubber tips as opposed to ATLAS stands which have a thinner profile with a slight bend on each of the bottom legs, steel/chrome wingnuts or screws, and small rubber feet. This much I am certain of. I guess I wanted to know the time period in which they were produced and if they were simply one type of model, i.e ATLAS snare stand, cymbal stand 1402 and not more than one model for each stand. I dig the passion in the responses and look forward to future exchanges. Peace drum brothers......

Well....as stated above there were several style changes (evolutions if you will) of the Atlas series of hardware. Generally the stands were available from 1968 (ish) to 1975 with the flat legs (and there were two style of cymbals stands made drung this time too), 1976-1978ish with the tube legs and swivel feet, then the name change to Hercules in 1978ish when they went with heavier top sections, big rubber feet and eliminated the "band clamp" on the base, and then they were reintroduced as the Atlas II series around 1982. The Atlas series of hardware was a complete line of hardware.....straight cymbal stands, snare stands, hi-hats, thrones, tom stands, and later....boom cymbal stands. Can you date they? yes and now....you can get approximate eras by noting the style changes from the catalogs, but not specifically date them to a particular year.

BTW....pics of your stands could help us with giving you an approximate time frame.

No, that would be a correct Atlas stand from 1976-1978(ish)