After spending all night reading many of the posts on here it appears I have answered my own question!! The cymbals are those Zildjan A ones. A crash, ride, sizzler, and hi hats. Looks like they were all from the same set to me and probably so. I imagine when he got the drums those came with it.

Oh well. I am going to try and get some shine back into those things. They are heavy as hell so I dont think I can hurt them by polishing them for awhile.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]You can tell the exact vintage, give or take a few years, by examining the stamp on each, measuring the heights,a nd cross referencing to here:

http://www.winniesdrumkit.nl/hidehitters/Cymbals/Zildjianstamps/timeline.html

[COLOR="Red"]Here's a suggestion on cleaning vintage cymbals:[/COLOR]

Some folks do, some do not. But don't use Brasso...yeah, it works but it's a pain and it is actually abrasive.

2 good products are:

[COLOR="Sienna"]Wrights Copper Cream ~[/COLOR] it's a paste which you apply to a wet cymbal and sponge on gently....it then chemically removes patina. Then you rinse off, and then wash again with dish soap to remove any residue. The nice thing about Wrights is....all of the patina will NOT come off in one application, you will need to do 2 or 3 or more. SO...you can actually remove a lot of the unsightly stuff, while not stripping the cymbal of all of the patina it has acquired over the decades.

[COLOR="Sienna"]Sabian Performers Cymbal Cleaner ~[/COLOR] This does the opposite, it's an acid-wash spray the consistency of water. You spray it, coat the cymbal, and it'll remove ALL of the patina in one application. It will make the cymbal look brand new.

However, keep in mind that patina isn't just dirt, it is a chemical reaction with the bronze....and typically, some patina on a cymbal does very nice things to the sound (it's what makes a vintage cymbal sound like a vintage cymbal). So, you may not wanna remove all of the patina from those A's. I usually don't..Ii usually do one or two applications of Wrights and leave some patina.

A's get a nice, nice chocolate-coffee-esque patina on 'em over time, very classic, very beautiful....so, again, I would suggest going with the Wrights....unless your really dig shiny cymbals.

Also, we'd love to see some pics of the Slingy kit !

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Thanks alot Jaye!! While I am a child of the 80's who was jamming to Metallica and Guns during my high school years I can appreciate what you are telling me about leaving the cymbals alone. I had always thought that them being that darker, to put it bluntly-forgotten about color would be a sign of neglect and not simply just age. This is good information as I was not enthralled about the idea of doing the karate kid wax on wax off routine for a couple hours at least to get them semi -shiny. I did get the Brasso after them a year or so ago but gave that effort up pretty quickly. I may try that stuff you recommended that takes several aps or I may leave them as is and just buy a box set of shiny cymbals to rock out in my garage on. To be honest these probably aren't the drums for me either as I tend to play Paradise City and ACDC alot as they are easy to keep up with for my beginner talents.

Thanks again for the info.

I am posting some pretty bad pictures of them tonight as this is my first go round with the digital camera. Any drum picture taking constructive criticism would be received in a positive way!!

drumhack