This shows what I know...

I was under the impression that "pies" referred only to Paiste cymbals, because the spelling looks like it should be pronounced pasty, and the nickname "pies" reinforced the correct pronunciation. But hey, I'm a guy that spent several years thinking that young people were saying "my bag" when they would make a mistake. It made sense metaphorically...like they were taking ownership of the mistake and putting it into their bag of mistakes.

I have since been corrected...my bag.

While I love old K's, for me and my son it's currently thin Tran stamp rides that do it for us. Happily, they are less inexpensive than old K's although they are harder to find.

Thin Trans Stamp rides are nice to my ears, and are less expensive than old Ks. I'm not sure where you draw the line for Thin in different diameter Trans stamp rides, although I've got data which gives the shape of the weight distributions. And we could discuss the relative numbers of old Ks versus Trans Stamps for sale over the 5 years I've been tracking them to look at "harder to find".

Well, maybe just harder for me to find. I don't buy cymbals without hearing them first, and that's the hard part.

I think the most expensive cymbals I've ever seen are those early 18-19" orchestral pair K Zildjians made in Constantinople.

My guess for the most expensive cymbal in the world (if it was up for auction,) would be the Zildjian ride cymbal that Joe Morello used on Brubeck's Take Five album.

John

Yes, thank you for mentioning that. And doesn't this thread belong in the section on cymbals? :rolleyes:

Yes those 18" plus orchestral pairs seem to be a special case in terms of pricing. Opinions vary and are sometimes strongly held regarding what they will sell for. For example this thread:

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=58139

which you have a post in. Since then, a single 18" sold for $1742.17 at an unusually light (for these) 1134g on the 18th of Feb 2018 and feedback has been placed so it looks like a solid data point. While it lasts here is the link:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NICE-ZILDJIAN-18-034-K-TURKEY-034-OLD-STAMP-034-CRASH-CYMBAL-THIN-1344-GRAMS-1930-s-/173144686218

so you can have a look in context. Double that and add a margin for a pair as a pair and you might get to the other top sale price I've recorded for a 22".

The most expensive 22" Old Stamp K Zildjian Istanbul I've got on record is one bought by Bill Maley for $4000 reported in 2011. That was a Hartrick Old Stamp Type IIa. There was one sale back in 2013 at $3850, then there is a bit of a gap in the prices until you get down to about $3200. There are 4 asking prices above $3400 where there were no bids, and there are two sales which are suspicious in that no feedback was ever placed and/or the cymbal may have gone for a lower offer but we can't know what that was.

Trying to get accurate estimates in these cases is rather like the special estimation procedures which are used to estimate 1 in a 100 year floods where you are trying to get the shape of a curve at the extreme end of a distribution and there are never enough data points for it to be well estimated. *sigh*

with Zen statistics you can get an accurate idea,

the little points there is:

1) quality factor (OLD K first, then Spizzichino, and then all the others)

2) conditions factor (Aged well first, then NOS, then aged badly and finally cracked)

3) weight factor, bell type, shape type

4) fashion factor, today very wash tomorrow a lot of ping

5) holy grail factor depends on many factors for connoisseurs & nerds

6) belonged to Elvin Jones or his friends, add one or more zeros to the end

I think in broad terms :)