That's some obscure and interesting details on the evolution of the drums. I never knew the back story until years later. Didn't know (or care) who was an endorser of the drums back then either.

I knew I wanted standard depth and prefer birch over maple, which I feel (right or wrong) has a narrower tuning range. That feeling may be based on the type and quality of bearing edges available in the early 80's in mid to low line kits (stencils etc.). I have played several low end kits in recent years and been blown away. Yamaha's Stage Custom Birch line is so good, I helped my bass player get a set for his daughter who was using my RC kit for several years while I was traveling. The sound and quality of those "cheap" kits is on par with the old RC kits. Only the Taiwan made Remo heads need to be changed to U.S. made ones.

Anyway, I am glad I went with what I did for a lot of reasons. I knew the blue kit was going to be my 'last' kit, and it was my only kit for nearly 20 years until I got the bop kit and D20's a few years ago... Maybe 10 years ago now? Man time flies...

Finally some photos of the flyer!

And the back cover:

It's interesting that the blue was not shown in the example photos in the flyer...

My '86 catalog has three kits (one PTC and one TC) with that Fine Blue finish on display.

The '89 shows the TTC, PTC and TC in Cobalt Blue.

The '90 catalog shows the RTC and the PRC, RC (these last two also in Metallic Blue) in Cobalt Blue.

In the '98 It was done with the blue finishes for the RC (Deep Aqua doesn't count :D)

I think this flyer is from 1990.

I remember the sales guy pushing the cherry wood finish... as nice as it is, I still think the blue is cool.

I just looked at my RC serial numbers to look up when they were made and found out I have the Force models for my 10,14 and 20, while the 8 is RC.

Can anyone who has it put a link to the Force in a catalog if they have it??

Thanks!!

That 8 may be original to your kit... I think all the 8's are 8x8 so they probably all got marked as RC. Just speculation but seems plausible.

Could be. I've had these since 98 and this is the first time I've ever checked them out. Pretty neat!

Did you check the link earlier in this thread? Maybe there is a force series shown in one of those catalogues.

But I don't think the specific id of the drum will be shown... if it is an 8x8 on the force kits it's probably marked RC. I couldn't see them marking the same size drum with different id just for a kit.