That color, is in fact called metalic red.Those are at the earliest,1983,which is when Tama introduced what it called X tras sizes,That was also one of the last years for those one touch mufflers.The interior are coated with what Tama called zolacoat,basicly trunk paint.

The shells are 9 ply Phillipine mahogany.Imperialstars were second only to Superstars,and Imperialstars were played by Stewart Copeland and Liberty DeVitto.They're excellent drums,and tune up pretty easily.There are plenty of parts available,in the for sale section here,and on Ebay.Those lugs and leg brackets are around all the time.For that money,you did well.Best of luck

Steve B

Thanks Steve. I forgot to mention about the inner coating and all shells have re-rings.

In the 1975 catalog the drumsizes were already available though, but as a shellpack. So I'm thinking it may have been a special order or it was a bigger set and other toms were sold separately.

Right you are.I didn't bother to read the sizes of the toms,that you typed,they just looked like x tras sizes to me....my bad ,and mea culpa.Your toms are undeed standard sizes.

Steve B

Wow! Great big kit! I've been playing a 1984 Swingstar on gigs this year & really digging them. I'd grab an Imperialstar from that era in a heartbeat. Good luck with your restoration. Enjoy! PS: I lucked out using Evans EC2's on a whim & they sound nice and deep on there.

Nice buy. I would also put it at '76/'77. Looks exactly like the Metallic Red Imp in the 1976 catalogue. Metallic Red was discontinued, it doesn't appear to be in any catalogue from 1978 on

+1

This drumset contains the same latest lug type (no. 6370) plus the same damper type called 'One touch tone control' of the latest STAR drums, before Star turned their name into TAMA. That happened in 1974.

Ralf

Thanks guys. I found this page in their 1976 catalog. So I think my set came from a Mars 8 type kit configuration, except my bass drum is 22" not 24".

Found these from another seller, a 24"(81252) bass drum, a 12" (101569) and a 13" (81036) rack toms. They have been rewrapped, not the best job I've seen as 2 air vents were replaced and the badge on the 13 came separate and slightly damaged. It was a hard bargain as the seller didn't want to lower the price much, but bought them for €200. All I'm missing now is the 18" floor tom.

Next year's project will be to rewrap the entire set.

Pictures will follow, I can't upload them from my iPhone.

Here are some pics. The last one I decided to put everything together.