This is the vintage cymbal forum on a vintage drum site. If you have zero interest in learning about or understanding the differences between vintage cymbals I wonder why you bother to post here. You are free to do so of course, everyone is welcome here. But I'm just curious.

Whew. That's quite a proof reading error you picked up. Thank you. :eek:

Looking at the historical perspective, was it a simple mistake or a Freudian slip? ;)

Both. LoLoLoLo

Does anyone know of an easy way to tell the difference between a 1950s and early 70s stamp? I know the 70s stamp was hammered from the top side but it's difficult to see on some. The sound difference is huge, almost like the two were not even made by the same company and sometimes a sound file isn't available.

At first reading I think you mean how to tell the difference between a 1950s stamp and a 1970s stamp, on the basis of the stamp itself. Not using anything about the rest of the cymbal.

But by the second sentence you say "I know the 70s stamp was hammered from the top side..." and I believe you are speaking of cymbals, and that you are following Bill Hartrick's observation that hammering on the underside of A Zildjian cymbals was not done past the early 1960s period? Rather than commenting on the way in which the die stamp was pressed in to make the stamp?

Can you clarify a little what you mean in that second sentence? If it is how I interpreted it (cymbals stopped being hammered from the top) that's good. If it is something about the way in which the die stamp was pressed in then that's new to me so I'd be interested.

Meanwhile, I can put together a "tell the stamps apart" illustrated approach, and a "tell the cymbals apart without knowing the stamp itself" illustrated approach. And Bill can let us know where his data contradicts what I come up with.

Sorry, I meant I cannot tell the difference between the two stamps (1950s or early70s) if they were hammered from top or bottom. The sound difference and the ink stamps are easy.

Don't worry. Zenstat is a Kiwi. They talk funny down there, probably a result of being upside down and having all their blood rushing to their brains. :)

Zenstat was born and raised in California, but went native in New Zealand some time later. He has not always lived uʍop ǝpᴉsdn.

Focusing on the stamp itself here are differences which have come to my attention. Note I didn't spot these. Other people told me to have a look for them. All I've started to do is try and annotate photos so we can have a better chance of knowing that we are talking about the same thing.

Beginning at the 60s stamp just so we have a frame of reference:

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2014/60s.jpg[/img]

You can see the red arrow and circle around "three dots". People seem to think that the 50s stamp and the 70s stamp don't have the "three dots" and that means they can be confused easily.

In the later 50s we have the stamp without those dots:

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2014/50s.jpg[/img]

But look carefully at two features. Number 1 is that nice vertical alignment I point to in red. Number 2 is that the font weight (or stroke weight) is heavier for two of the elements, the ZILDJIAN Co and the Ottoman part of the text. The AVEDIS is lighter. The rest of the text is in the same weight as the Avedis.

Compare the 50s to the 60s and you see the same vertical alignment and stroke weight differences are there. Hint: if you can't pick up the stroke weight differences relax your eyes and just go for the overall impression rather than focussing hard.

Now a 70s stamp

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2014/70s.jpg[/img]

I've annotated the same two places. You should be able to see that the vertical alignment is no longer there (red arrow) because the MADE IN USA is more spread out. The second feature (2 green arrows) is that the font stroke weight is the same for all the elements. I find this easiest to see when comparing "ZILDJIAN" with "AVEDIS".

These things are relatively easy to pick up in "eBay/Crasigslist" poor quality pictures.

Failing that you fall back to the tried and true "the 70s stamp is often very light or poorly struck". Alas, I don't know anybody who has tested this theory and told us sample sizes and given us confidence limits for using it. So we don't know how well this distinction works. Is it correct: 8 out of 10? 99 out of 100? I'd want to know the accuracy of the method if it was the only criterion on which I had to base a purchase.

Now the complications: I haven't mentioned that there are 4 other 50s stamps (at least), a later 60s stamp, etc. Most fun of all is that one of the 50s Large Stamps has the dots. Oh joy. Trouble for identification. If you go back to Drumaholic's article I linked to you will see these and also see that they are different heights. Alas, sometimes getting a seller to measure stamps accurately is as hard as getting them to weight a cymbal accurately. But these things might put some more tools in your toolbag which will help you tell the difference.

I've also heard from two people who have counterexamples to the 50s vs 70s alignment attribute. In other words one claims to have a well identified 50s cymbal which lacks the vertical alignment. The other claims to have a well identified 70s cymbal which has the vertical alignment. So what next?

In order to assess how well the alignment or font stroke attribute does in predicting 50s vs 70s all on its own a statistician (such as my good self) wants to know sample sizes and how many there are which fit in the 4 different categories. I could (on no evidence) argue away these two as misidentifications of the decade. I could instead treat it as a statistical issue which says "no problem with some counterexamples if they represent 1 in a 100 or fewer" because that would still leave you with a great rule of thumb. But nobody to my knowledge has ever told us about how many of these they have looked at, and how many did or did not fit the expected pattern. Without that basic reporting of information we have no idea how well (or poorly) any of these methods might work.

If this does it for you I'll hold of the general pics of lathing differences between 50s and 70s (partly because I have even less faith my understanding of the differences and the quality of my illustrations).

Super!, Thank you for all the detail. I can tell them apart with numerous identifiers now.