Ya, I understand what you're saying, having to special order heads and I don't know what Premier had against 13" toms back in those days, but they sorta did adapt later. My duro plastic kit had the standard size shells and was in a 13,16,22 configuration. That was a great kit with the African mahogany shells.

By 'time they did' - meaty T-handles on Brackets, the 9X13, the twin 392 tom post- the great Triloc stand for Pete's sake !

It was Too late.

Pearl Tama and Yamma had "invaded" and all makes - were back on their heels - some (Sling, Roger's) didn't survive.

Premier's- despite the cool Genista and hot Signia- days were numbered.

Rest In Peace- with a Keith Moon bass thrown off-stage ; )

Ya, I agree, Premier made some mistakes, but at least they survived the invasion, although I've heard it wasn't as bad in Europe.

Premier made a monumental marketing blunder several years ago. They earmarked most of their USA distribution for the Guitar Center chain because they were promised the moon for doing it. Their loyal independent music store customers could not get the drums that they and their customers had on order for months while the GC stores kept getting tonnage of Premier drums. As is common in retailing, apparently GC made too many pricing demands to Premier for them to continue with the virtual exclusive distribution to GC. They were going broke by selling too cheaply to GC. The old marketing joke prevailed here. "How do you make up for losing money on each sale"? "VOLUME"! Premier was nowhere to be seen in the USA for a few years after their marketing debacle with Guitar Center. Mind you, I will not knock GC for their business approaches. They got to where they are by working their plan.

I haven't been to GC in years, once in awhile I'll hit Sam Ash. If I need anything drum related I'll check cl or go to a local drum business. There are two guys here that I've been dealing with for years, one has an actual drum shop and the other runs his business from home.

While Premier lacked the 'grunt' in terms of their hardware, the quality of the chrome on their fittings was vastly superior to the Japanese and in many cases the US drum makers as well.

it helped.