Cool..

I had a pair of 14" NB's in the early -mid 80's where I thought the same thing!

Should have kept them...

Well hey, you may be able to find some out there. I've got another pair of 60s A hats which are pretty nice too, but these that I found today are right spot on with the Ringo vibe. We're talking almost exact sound. Of course, the main thing is that they sound good on their own.

Im on my second pair of these hats, they're great!

I've yet to hear a "bad' pair of them.

I recently bought some 60's NB. By far my favorite hats.

The way you can tell EARLY NB's is..

the top is quite a bit thinner then the bottom...

Over time,they started making the top heavier and heavier...

Just a very very slight correction for my very respected man Blair ... There's no such thing as early New Beats when you're into the 50s and 60s. They were just matched hats. You matched up extra-thin, paper-thin, thin, medium-thin, medium, medium-heavy, heavy, and extra-heavy. That's pretty much how it ran. If you were to look at the Zildjian cats from the 60s and before, all you would see for designations under the "famous drummers" setups would be the size, the type, and the weight. The New Beat label didn't kick in until much later (about the 70s). The hats you are currently enjoying are most likely just sweeeeeet matched hats. I've got several pairings like that. They are some of my faves throughout the years.

Thats all true about 50's-early 60's hats..

Louis Bellson came up with the idea of Zildjian offering stock pairs of hats with the top thinner then the bottom one...

The post starts off with him scoring some 60's NB's,and I was just saying the initial pairs had thinner tops then later ones....

Weigh a 1969 pair along side a 2012 pair pair...BIG difference.....

I ran across this in an article several years ago:

...e-mailed Zildjian asking them about the New Beats. This is their reply:

"The "New Beat" concept actually started with the suggestion from the great drumming artist and Zildjian endorser, Louie Bellson in 1965. He recommended the use of a heavier bottom cymbal than what was commonly used up to that point in time. It was actually the bottom cymbal that was referred to as a "New Beat" (Mr. Bellson actually coined the term) that could be applied to any weight top cymbal (medium to thin weights). This went on for a couple of years until a dedicated New Beat Hihat pairing was established in 1967-68 using a medium weighted top cymbal to go against the "New Beat" bottom. It was then that the classic New Beat Hihats were born. Since then, they have remained our most popular hihat creations."

Blairndrums is right. The '60s New Beats that I have are 890/1260 grams - top/bottom. Through the

years, the New Beats have gotten progressively heavier. The closest you can get to the

early New Beats today are the Zildjian Armand series hats.

That's pretty much across the board. They gradually went heavier as the music grew louder (with the added variable of "thicker the cymbal, the less likely it will break, won't have to replace it"). That's the same drive that all the drum manufacturers followed. That's also the same force that drove Paiste to create the 2002 line of cymbals during that time period ... etc etc etc