What is the composition? Nickel Silver by chance?

See: http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=44977&highlight=super+zyn

As to composition, different series are said to be of different composition.

If you check out Zyn on wikipedia it directs back here in the references. So

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymbal_manufacturers#Zyn

Directs to us right here in VDF-land.

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?p=197405

You will see a variety of opinions expressed. Drumaholic has posted various info and scans of printed materials on these which are in the footnotes to that Wiki article. Drumaholic may well know the most about these, and I believe he may be a fan of the 5 star Zyn. He reports that he knows somebody who took some shavings and had them analyzed, which suggests B12-ish not B20. Elsewhere in the same post he talks of B8. All I know is that opinions vary and facts are scarce. Pinksterboer (The Cymbal Book, p174) may or not be correct about sheet B20 (the nature of sheet B20 is controversial quite independent of Zyn's use of it).

I'm hoping Drumaholic will weigh in here with the good oil, and a consistent story might emerge. That would make a nice change.

super zen!(stat)..Walking

mike

I was about to get hands on an 8" Zyn splash (plain Zyn) for $20 so I could (shock horror) chop it up in the name of science and send it off to the lab for testing with the other samples I've been collecting up. But somebody bid it up to $40 already, and I figure if somebody else wants it for that amount it should go to a good home rather than be sacrificed to science.

I'm always on the lookout for bits of broken cymbals as part of my materials analysis project. It's time we got some of the questions about these and other brands sorted out. But I need more than a few shavings out of the bell hole. A piece about an inch square is good because it also allows for testing of surface hardness, as well as sampling from several different locations for the mass spectrometer. But we'll take what we can get. As usual with my work, all the data will be freely available and public. That's just how I roll.

I own super zyn hi hats and I used to own a 5 star super zyn 18" plus 15" hi hats. I got rid of the 5 star stuff, but hung on to the super zyn hats. I found the 5 star stuff a bit too heavy and they only made them in medium. There was no light or extra light 5 stars. They're all the same. I compared my 18" 5 star with another 18" 5 star and they sounded almost identical. They're a very generic type of cymbal from 69 through to maybe early 80's. I found the 5 stars to be very bright sounding and a bit heavy. The earlier plain old super zyn (without 5 stars) were thinner, darker, more complex sounding and these are the ones that drummers want. The 5 star were a decent cymbal though. I would assume B-20 or close enough. Both 5 star and Super. The 5 stars looked a bit more silvery than the supers or maybe that's just my imagination. I really like my super hats and I've tried many times to buy more supers, but usually I get outbid, people always bid on these on eBay, not so much the 5 stars though. The supers fly off the shelves. I would really like to own a 22" Super. No doubt it's a very nice sounding cymbal and a 22" is a rare bird. Very rare I would say. These are 50's / 60's cymbals. 5 star are basically 70's cymbals made by Premier Drum Co. in England.

How does your statement

fit with Drumaholic's claim that

Are you just talking about Premier selling them (versus making them) Chromeo? Or do you have different information about some 5 stars not being made by UFiP?

Note also one of you has the 5 stars starting in the 60s and the other starting in the 70s. If I'm reading you both properly.

This is just the kind of "uncertainty" I'm talking about.

Zenstat, I can't say with 100% certainty that 5 star super zyn cymbals were introduced in 69, but they first appeared in the Premier catalog in 69. I think they were discontinued in the early 80's or late 70's so I just call them 70's cymbals because they were mostly around during that decade and as I live beside England these were the cymbals that all the drummers played around here during that time. They were a poor man's Zildjian. It was also hard to get your hands on Zildjian cymbals here back then. I can't speak too much about them, because I wasn't there. I was only born in 1980 so I missed all that, but I know many drummers here that tell me about these cymbals. I got my Super Zyns from an old guy who owns a Premier kit that he bought back in the 60's so i know the exact history behind my own Super Zyns. I didn't just acquire them online. I got them from the original owner who bought his kit in the mid 60's.

I've heard the UFiP thing before, but I don't want to go there. I don't see too many similarities between UFiP and 5 Star Supers or any other Super Zyns for that matter. Maybe there is some connection there. I am aware of a Super Zyn ad that says, Made in one of Europe's Finest Cymbal Factories (or something like that) Could that mean UFiP, Paiste, Meinl? I don't know. I'm not sure were they were made. They have the words "Made in England" stamped into them so I'm sure they bought some blanks from somewhere and finished them in England. Lathed, hammered and stamped in England maybe.

UFiP were roto-casting their cymbals in the 70's and 5 Star Super Zyn are not rotocast cymbals. Definitely not! Compared to a 70's UFiP crash that I own there are not too many similarities. The bronze seems different. The profile is different and the hammering and lathing are different too.

Thanks for your comments. I'm not sure about the UFiP thing either. That's Drumaholic's claim not mine. The only thing I know is that I don't seem to hear a consistent story yet. That's for most of the Zyn story, not just the possible UFiP connection.

I also don't automatically believe the stories about Italian POWs staying behind in England after WWII to hand hammer Zyn cymbals. I'd like to see somebody go to the Imperial War Museums

http://www.iwm.org.uk/

and come up with the appropriate records. Or similar records held at Premier.

Yes, rotocasting at UFiP began in 1978 (Pinksterboer p200) vs 1975 in Luciano, p130) so yes mid 70s or so. However, there are also a number of other factories (5?) which were making cymbals in Italy and weren't rotocasting. Too many people still make the equation Italian made = UFiP, just as too many people still say "rotocast" for UFiP cymbals made in the 1960s, when they mean "gravity cast". So it goes.