Another thing I noticed is that the tension rods on the bass drum need a drum key. Most pictures of xp8's that I have seen have the kind that can be tightened with your hand. The 1983 catalog however clearly show a picture of a bass drum with the drum key tuning tension rods. I did not pay much for them, but hope to have them as close to original as possible. Ploughman to the rescue.

There was a short time span around 1980 for the no-serial badges, all the rest have them.

Nice looking kit.

I just found the Big R dating guide link and see that these serial numbers and sequences are not unusual. Pretty cool kit and I cannot wait to hear these shells sing. I'm still a bit confused about the bass drum tension rods but I suspect Rogers used both hand tuning and drum key varieties.

Here is a pic of the tom hardware.

The T-rods can be bent pretty easily so it's not uncommon to see them replaced.

I prefer to use regular key rods on the bottom two lugs on both sides because it's easier to make small tuning adjustments without the T being in a vulnerable position being that close to the floor.

These with key rods... if original rods... would be 82-83. Not unusual to see 95xxxx numbers all over the map. Cannot explain it except for the fact production was moved about six times in the last five years. Most of those moves during the XP8 period.

Nice kit. Back in the Rock & Roll years, I had a huge white 24 x20 double bass XP8 kit with 12x12, 13x13, 14x14,15x15 rack toms and a 16x16 floor tom which I bought from Pro Percussion in north London in around 1982-3. Looked stunning but very Spinal Tap in retrospect!