I would had thought any cymbal made for Buddy Rich would not be in circulation without anyone knowing what is was. I'm sure BR didn't just give away his cymbals to anyone. Maybe someone here would know, but it stills seems odd.
... and that "someone", is probably me! Truth be told JR, Buddy DID give away his cymbals at random over the years, and same with snare drums and complete sets. All true! I know of THREE sets of BR's personal cymbals as well as "singles" here and there that he gave away. I have SEEN many and helped authenticate some too. Out of the BR cymbals that I have seen/handled, none had a BR stamp into the cymbal itself. What they DID have was simply SPECIAL SELECTION on the underside in ink. I am not saying there couldn't be cymbals with BR stamped into the actual cymbal, as all sorts of things were done back in the day.. but ... the norm was they had SPECIAL SELECTION stamped on the underside. Furthermore, Lennie DiMuzio over at Zildjian was the one that hand picked Buddy's cymbals and had MANY ready to go when Buddy called. Those were hand picked by Lennie and stamped SPECIAL SELECTION, and these are the cymbals that are out there in other people's hands/collections. Again, yes!... Buddy gave them away here and there, but we don't know about ALL of them. I have also had the great pleasure of being offered THREE of BR's actual snare drums over the years, and believe me, I was tempted on two of them! Chatted with Cathy Rich about all of this at the Chicago Drum Show this past May. It was a GREAT time!
Tommyp