I am also a noob to the forum and after reading a few great posts here, I chose to use a natural color paste wax to apply a protective finish to the raw mahogany interior of a set of 70's Premier drum shells. Light sanding with 320 grit paper, tack off dust,applied wax with cheesecloth, sanded between the first three applications with 000 steel wool and buffed the fourth with a microfiber cloth.

Worked great for me!

Wanna really geek out for us? Take off the front bass drum head and take a close up shot of the wood grain in there. That will tell us also a bit about the year. I put it a little later than 72/73 I would a little more towards 74/75 with that badge, those tom pipes, even the colour.

Just so you understand what people were asking- gray interior is simply a gray paint applied on the inside of the shell, clear luan is just the natural wood finish, phenolic is a non-wood but is dark brown color - a material like a ceramic fiber. NICE KIT!

OsakaBop,

To help the discussion along .... my kit, bought new in about 1973, has a floor tom with 6 "President" lugs, untreated luan interior. I think the salesman at the music store did a mix 'n match when he sold it to me, and I was about 10 so I didn't notice. The bass and mounted tom have the grey painted interior, newer lugs, heavier fold-out bass spurs and 10 lugs on the bass, hex tom mounts. (The full kit picture is, of course, with a Club Date floor tom.)

The 1970 Pearl catalog seems to be the first one to show the hex tom mounts:

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/pearl_drumsets_1970.htm

How's that for geeking out?

Geek level up for sure- and a winner.

Those President diamond/faceted lugs on the floor tom are very good quality stuff- I haven't had any breakage on one of those yet.

That single tom holder with the middle era tom pipe - I have never seen a single like that before- cool to see.

The grey painted bass drum seems to be made out of much higher quality wood than the floor tom.

I have one 1974 Pearl kit - which has a grain pattern that tells me it's at least got a ply of birch as the inner most- maybe more. Thanks for posting this.