I'm gonna say 67 and here's why – a friend put me onto a similar

kit which I brought recently. I've researched it fairly extensively and came

up with this. Until 66 the drums have the older deco style lugs, they changed

to the 'pointy' style lugs in 67. By 68 there were further changes – drums

became international sizes, mahogany used instead of birch, tom mounts moved

to front of bass drum, spurs moved up to sit above bottom lugs (presumably to give more stability). My kit is pretty much the same as the one your looking at with the birch shells, mounts at the player side of the kick and spurs lower down.

A couple of things worth mentioning. These will be metric/pre-international size drums. Premier didn't make a 13" drum back then only 12" and 14" tom sizes. Most likely the toms are both 12". Some people a negative about the metric prems but heads are still available in both coated and clear ambassador and pinstripe models. Check out drumarchive.com click on Premier and have a look at the 66 and 68 catalogs.

Actually, both those toms are pre int 12's – you can see by the head sitting under the hoop collar. Parts are available ( I just located a metric 12" hoop) they sound excellent and the construction quality is second to none.

Premier hoops come up regularly on ebay UK (mainly the international size types). But I can't tell how often they appear on ebay USA.

Ralf

This implies that the heads on these drums are standard 12" heads-----hard to believe the t-rods would have reached, unless they have been replaced with longer ones.--- For the Premier sized heads from Remo, they only produce 10",12",16" and 20"(not sure about 22 and 24 but likely). They do not produce the undersized (13 3/4") snare drum head but it can be custom ordered with enough backup----measurements, old head,hoop etc. to help be accurate.When ordering heads from a dealer, the head is the same # as a standard one but the last two digits are pr, so for a 12" Coated Ambassador, the standard # is BA-0112-00 and the premier # is BA-0112-PR. There are ambassador clear and coated,Pinstripe and bass drum Emperor as well. There may be others too. I haven't looked in a while.Sometimes, the head is just ever so slightly too big to fit into the relief in the drum rim. A very small amount of filing or sanding on the aluminum hoop upon which the head is mounted ,will trim enough to get the head into a tight fit in the rim. This is more of a problem with Olympic and Beverley,which have the same size shells but have stamped ,not cast rims.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I am hoping to get these tomorrow and start making them look and sound better!

I'm sure I will have a lot of questions in the upcoming days. In the meantime, if anyone has any other wisdom concerning these drums I would love to hear it!

Okay guys, I got the set. It is a bit of a head scratcher to me. The two mounted toms are both 12 inch, as a couple of you said. Do you think they came that way from the factory? If so, why?

Also, the hardware is all Premier and original, but somebody drilled several holes in both of the 12's. It's possible that they were switched to a different mount, then switched back, but from the way they looked, the current hardware has been there for a long time.

What are your thoughts on a re wrap? The holes would have to be repaired either way, and I figure a new wrap would look great. It's gonna be a player's kit. I must admit I am being swayed by the project jcymbal did. Amazing! (If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you check it out.)

Unless one of the 12" rack toms has a (hidden?) 2nd acoustic hole, I assume that both came in original with the kit as the badges are 'at the right places'.

Premier kits often had either two 12" or two 14" rack toms (but never a 13"). Standard at Premier's.

It's difficult to say whether the brackets are/not genuine. In former times it was common for drummers to advance their tom holder system. Noone was really taking care of 'keeping it as original as possible' at that time.

I personally do like the silver sparkle finish. Unless there are cracks in any of the wraps or the sparkle has a fading (but I've never heard of a silver sparkle fade so far), you will loose money in it: you may receive the amount for the wrap back - but no bigger plus for the kit itself. So I would leave it as it is.

Ralf

I agree with Ralf. That Silver Sparkle wrap looks good, I wouldn't re-wrap them. You have a nice looking set of Drums there, clean them up and enjoy playing them. Good luck.