My quick test of Intermediate vs New Stamp is

star greater than size of M in MADE IN... it's a New Stamp

star about the size of M it's an Intermediate Stamp

So that's a New Stamp.

New Stamps come with variable amounts of space between the upper portion and the text below. That's one with the larger space. Bill Hartrick (who came up with these names and documented the timeline) has a two page spread in the 2013 book by Rob Cook The Gretsch Drum Book, and in that he calls the version with more space Newer New Stamp (1972-1977). The one with less space he called (no guessing...) the Older New Stamp (1967-1972). I don't know how firmly that chronological distinction is holding up with further research, but that's where things were at in 2013.

Thank you so much for the further infomation. I'll have to take a look at the The Gretsch Drum Book...That was already on my to do list for books to get.

-Ryan

@Zenstat (or anyone else)...Any idea on approximate value?

I've been searching ebay, cymbalholic and old sales on VDF and drum forum...It seems like the price range is very wide.

FYI the weight is 1648g. From what I can tell that's light for a 20" K Istanbul.

Exactly. As we've discussed before, I recall Bill suggesting in the recent past that there would be a reevaluation of the New vs Newer New stamp after he discovered some overlap in the time line. Assuming I'm recalling this correctly, I haven't seen any other comments from him on the subject. Perhaps he could chime in and update us with his current thinking on New Stamps.

Bill hasn't posted as Drumaholic since August 2014, Mark. But it would be nice for him to start again. I'm just hoping he's happily busy on his projects.

My information isn't entirely independent of yours, it's basically what you mentioned to me before, combined with what I know about the general process of data analysis and seriation (the term from archeology) where even if the eras didn't overlap then the data will overlap because of the nature of the processes generating the data. In simple terms: it would be very unusual if the dates didn't overlap once you had enough data in hand.

On the question of expected value: Yes the range of asking prices is large, as is the range of final prices when sold. Yes 1648g is light and gets the "extra expected value" for being light. Condition matters as well. I have some data from price tracking of completed eBay sales (plus forums another misc. online sources). It isn't yet as thorough nor as large in sample size as my 602/Sound Creation study, but I'll post what I've got in a minute. *sound of database cranking up*

Here is my data for 20" New Stamps. You need to focus on just New Stamps because we believe that the prices for Old Stamps tend to be higher than New Stamps and this factor is large enough that you need to take stamp era into account. I'm not yet in a position to say whether Intermediate expected values are different from New Stamps or not (based on statistical analysis taking into account condition, weight, etc) because I haven't done the statistical analysis. I haven't done it for Old Stamps either, but I believe that difference will be significant in analysis even though I haven't done the model fitting yet.

This is the latest data:

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2015/k-new-20-part1.jpg[/img]

And this is earlier data which I haven't yet moved/recoded over into the new layout:

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2015/k-new-20-part2.jpg[/img]

Note that I'm dropping the Newer/Older New Stamp distinction in my current data coding. I made that decision to get larger samples even before questions about the weight of evidence supporting such a division.

Under the Bids field if it says -3 that means it was either sold for an undisclosed amount or the auction was removed, so it is a flag that the record doesn't contribute good price data. If Bids is 0 then nobody was willing to bid at that price. In both cases the Price field records the asking price. I use other codes (all documented in the coding tab of the spreadsheet of course). All my data is freely available to anybody who wants it -- but still rather messy at the moment, as you can see.

So what do I see eyeballing the data? An expected range of $900 - $1400 say my eyeballs. By expected range I mean expect maybe 80% of sales to fall in this range, 20% to fall outside this range. This is sort of equivalent to "Price is ok for buyer and seller. Not a steal by the buyer, not a rip-off by the seller." But that's an individual interpretation and others will have different ideas. Which is why I like to present the raw data.

More accurate than that means doing the statistical analysis properly, and that needs bigger sample sizes. In addition to considering condition and weight there are also factors like seller reputation (eg Hazelshould) and quality of ad/soundfile/pics. It is also likely that being in the USA/Canada vs Europe is an expected price factor, and I haven't yet even got a handle on that with the massive 602/Sound Creation database. Better economists/statisticians than me have pondered and analyzed such things and I know it isn't easy. The mathematics is ok, but getting quality data? Tough stuff.

I noticed I haven't seen any posts from him recently. I didn't realize it was that long since it seems like he's been posting fairly sporadically for quite a while. I hope he's okay.

Thanks again! I'm very new to the world of K Zildjian Istanbuls so this has all been super helpful information.