Hey JWG,
I lurk here more than I post, but I play the 100% birch performers. There is no way to tell the date unless you actually bought them yourself or the person(s) you got them from knows. What I can tell you is it appears the first birch sets actually had the starclassic stencil like the maples before they changed to the metal badges. I think this was the first year only for 100% birch, but I am sure someone can correct me if I am wrong. The serial numbers on them are for your protection and tracking, they have NOTHING to do with the year they were made like the maples serial numbers do. There is also at least two different versions of this badge. I will try to post pics later when I am home to show. I (think) the difference maybe one is made in China and the other in Japan.

It also appears that they only did a series of colors that were only avaialable 2-3 years then discontinued. This can be very problematic and frustrating when looking for add-ons such as 8x8 or 8x7's. I have the Aztec Red Fade and have never seen the 8x8 or 8x7 anywhere except a picture of one on this forum last year. You can still special order most of them, but it is a little costly and you can expect to wait roughly 6 months.

I am new to the forum, so I'm not exactly sure if I'm posting in the most appropriate/helpful place, but here goes anyway:

I am looking for a starclassic birch 13 X 16 hanging tom in Amber gold. I have 8,10,12,14 and 2 18X22 bass drums. The 16" is the great white whale that I have not been able to locate in the 2 years I've been searching. I'd probably give a testicle and a kidney for one. Does anyone know if Tama will still make these special order? If not, who's got one that they want to sell me?

Fingers crossed,

sam

Here's how my birch Performers currently sit:

It's called Charcoal Silk. It's a wrap from the 2000 or 2001 era.

Very Nice! I like that finish a lot. I love the birch kits in general.

Stunning!

Seen this before....but first time I noticed the tama remote hat - also props on the matching pedals across the board IC mark one era! Sorry if I have missed some obvious posts but do you have any live vids of you playing your kits?

Damn, I'm seeing this rather late, sorry about that.
Although I love them, I'm having some trouble with these pedals, because all of them are quite old (got the double pedal new in 1998, the main hihat shortly after that and the cable one was bought used, so I don't even know how old it is). Unfortunately I don't see myself upgrading them anytime soon, mainly because (let's say this all together) Tama-still-wont-make-a-new-cable-hat.
Speaking of the kit, there's a couple of clips of the final show with my former band, almost two years ago:




Damn, I still miss that band so much.