IMO if both your stamps have the thicker "Zildjian" font as you say then they are both definitely 60's production. If they were 70's you'd have a thin stamp. My feeling is that this is a mismatched 60's set. An early set would have a top hat under 1000g. Probably more in the upper 800's to just over 900 but no more. A later set would have a bottom hat over 1200g. By the 70' the bottom hats were more like 1400g. My 60's 15" new beats have a top hat about the same weight as your top hat. I think that your top hat is just too heavy to be originally paired with that 1200g bottom hat. Just my opinion.

Steve

Yum, data. :D Does this site go on to have data for 70s, 80s etc? Or are they just focused on the 60s. And do they specify what their criteria are for inclusion as 1960s? There are at least 5 criteria they might be using (in combination) to be sure that they are true 60s New Beats. Link?

For a visual reference "the three dots" we are talking about are these:

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

There are more than 5 pressed in die stamps which have "the three dots" and they range from mid 50s to 80s and possibly later. There are two in the 1960s: the "early 60s" which is 1 3/16" (30mm) tall, and an identical looking one which is 1 1/2" (38mm) tall. That's one reason I asked if you could please measure the height as well.

Note that the expert on these matters is Drumaholic. I've learned a bit, but while I'm involved in compiling data and presenting it I am only applying Drumaholic's dates and identified type specimens for these pressed in die stamps. My contribution (if any) is to offer a clear understanding of how to evaluate evidence using scientific methods, and hopefully to document the evidence properly and completely.

The original paper by Drumaholic (from Classic Drummer/Vintage Drummer) works through the earliest Avedis cymbals but stops in the 1960s with a very brief mention of the 1970s, and only then in the context of "like the late 50s":

[ame]http://black.net.nz/cym2013/ZDatingZildjianCymbals.pdf[/ame]

Thanks for joining in Magnus.

If you are going to rule out Jazzbo's pair from being first generation then you are going to have to rule mine out as well. And a couple of others I've recorded as well. Mine are a little heavier at 975/1300g (as documented above in an earlier post, along with a photo).

It seems to me we have now reached the point where we have two contrary propositions:

The earliest New Beats were up to 975/1300g and we didn't know this before because nobody had collected proper data on their weights, thus we were operating on an untested "belief system". There is far more variation in New Beat weights than previously thought but we didn't know because we hadn't looked.

or

Several of what are thought to be earliest New Beats are not really from the 1960s even though they pass all the other tests as being from the 1960s. This appears to be so even though the pressed in die stamps appear to fit perfectly with the two 1960s stamps.

Note that I don't hold to the idea that you can use how clean or unused a cymbal appears as a key deciding factor on age. Periodically I see photos from somebody like JPTrickster who has a number of absolutely mint cymbals from the Trans stamp period onwards. I would rely on other attributes to do with hammering and bell size and shape, and profile before I decided on the basis of how clean or unused a cymbal looks.

It may be that one of the 1960s stamps made another appearance late in the 1970s or early 80s. We don't know because that time period remains pretty much undocumented territory. All the effort has been lavished on 60s and earlier. Maybe we don't know because we haven't looked. Or maybe Drumaholic knows but he hasn't yet told us.

It may be that the 1978(ish) year for the hollow logo ink Zildjian going on the bottom isn't well estimated. The hollow ink logo illustrated, on a second generation NB (on the grounds that a picture is worth a 1,000 words)

http://black.net.nz/cym2014/z-hollow-ink-plus-stamp.jpg

It may be that the end year of the 1st generation ink isn't well estimated. The first generation ink style appears on both perfectly respectable 60s and perfectly respectable 70s (with the 70s stamp and the hollow ink logo).

If it were a 70s stamp it would not have the three dots. What you are talking about is a way to tell the difference between the late 50s small stamp and a 70s stamp.

Your cutoff of 900g excludes my pair and 2 others I know of as "probable". So now we have three "improbable" pairs, or we just didn't have enough data before and we missed the true variation. Take your pick.

I think jazzbo has given us an interesting new piece of information which will make us rethink the weights of early New Beats, or rethink lots of other timeline years.

Gerry (Hazelshould) has sold pairs which have the same ratio of weights as jazzbo's pairing (80% for jazzbo, Gerry has sold 81%). I don't believe that all of the Hazelshould "original pairings" can be relied on as such, but this new evidence isn't outside the range of "probable" if you actually start recording all the data.

And so far, Magnus has the only hat pairing I've recorded which actually has the magic 66% ratio. So it is at the extreme low end of the distribution as well. So does that make it "improbable"? Note that's before I've added all the new data jazzbo posted from a Japanese site.

I'll measure the stamps a little later . Here is a link to the Japanese site . It covers all eras . I haven't attempted to read or translate it yet . http://www.maroon.dti.ne.jp/miura/html/equipments/zildjian/azildjiansp.html

Just measured the stamps and they are both 30/31mm by 26mm ( widest at ZILDJIAN ). According to the Japanese site this means they are from the mid 70's to 1981 cymbals ( size and 3 dots match ) . Also , according to this site the early / mid 60's stamps were 40cm tall !? This Japanese site looks to be extremely informative .but unsure of its accuracy . Normally Japanese are very anal with regards to information on vintage drums so I tend to trust it . Wish I could read it all .

Ah. I've seen this site before. And like you I wish I could read it all. It makes me feel so monolingual. I've put some things through google translate in the past. I remember I found it inconsistent with all the traditional English sources (which are themselves inconsistent with one another).

I'll have to go through their specific mid 70s to 81 example(s) again. But as a quick point, make sure you haven't overlooked a ZILDJIAN & CO versus a ZILDJIAN & Co. The CO makes it much later, although I don't know how much later. An 80s stamp as best we know anyway:

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2014/Z-80s-CO.jpg[/img]

Note this one only has one dot rather than three, but that's due to the other two being very faint in this stamping, as far as I can tell.

The 30/31mm fits perfectly with Bill Hartrick's original timeline for early 60s. 40mm for early to mid 60s means you would have to revise Bill's work and claim he got the dates for the early 60s and the late 60s reversed. He has 38 mm as later 60s, not early. Note that people might use 40 mm for reporting purposes no matter how anal they are -- just because of the well documented tendency to round/truncate to "nice whole numbers". That's why I only report it as 38 mm, where in fact the conversion from his original 1.5" (which is itself approximate) is 38.1 Unless...the Japanese site 40mm is a true distinct size (different from the 38mm) and hitherto unknown to Bill Hartrick (and others in the West). In which case the timeline from the 1960s onwards to the 1980s needs revision. No I believe it does need revision, but not just because of this one uncertainty. Now matter which way you turn there are troubles of interpretation.

The two other sites commonly used (because Google finds them) are

http://robscott.net/cymbals/

and

http://www.hidehitters.com/cymbals/Zildjianstamps/timeline.html

and robscott defers to hidehitters for A Zildjian. Both show obvious inaccuracies, particularly the hidehitters site. The problems may have as much to do with mistakes in formatting and headers as much as actual dates. I've actually considered cloning the HTML and correcting it, and then sending the corrected version back to him. For an example consider the heading: Big Stamp 1953-1963. It should be called a Large Stamp according to Bill's publication which has naming priority (in Science whoever publishes first wins rights to name things). There are three types (missing from hidehitters) and although the heading says it goes to 1963 this is inconsistent with the content which follows, and the next section on the 50s stamp, and of course with all of Bill's work. Hidehitters and robscott also fail to give heights which are sometimes the most important attribute for identification. Those sites are in need of upgrading (and giving credit to Bill).

In no case do any of these sites: hidehitter, robscott, japanese one, nor Bill's original article give sample sizes and how the cymbals were dated so we don't really know the strength of evidence for any of the timeline dates. If you read his original article carefully you will see Bill understands the different kinds of evidence you might use and gives the appropriate cautions on deriving accurate single year dates. But that caution got lost when timelines started being used and placed on the web.

So we've opened up a riddle wrapped up in an enigma inside a mystery.

So my cymbals remain a mystery . :D

How do they sound? :D

How do they sound indeed! That's the real indication of whether you will keep and cherish them or not. I've been through several pairs of hats trying to find what I like best and my favorite so far are a set of 70's new beats at 960g and 1430g. Unfortunately my daughter has claimed these for her own and I'm still looking for a set for myself.

Steve