http://s3.zetaboards.com/Strawberry_Fields/topic/7372142/1/

Ringo Starr's first cymbal A 14" Krut Special (made in England), that has "Richard Starkey 1958" engraved on the back The cymbal was purchased from a junk/ old furniture shop in Connecticut owned by a man whose father was a drummer back in the 40's & 50's who has since past on, and used to live in England back then occasionally and would visit his mother who lived there. He got this old cymbal at a music store used it and then kept in an old smelly trunk with some sticks and drumheads. Krut cymbals were manufactured in the '50's by Premier Drum company, and were a cheap line of cymbals that they pushed. The word "Krut" was a marketing ploy by Premier that is "Turk" spelled backwards, to make the drummer believe it might be somehow be related to the Turkish "Zildjian" cymbals. Unfortunately the marketing plan probably backfired, & "Krut" sounded more like "Krud", a more accurate description of the sound of the cymbals. Ringo's first cymbal according to the Beatles Anthology, was an old junker that his step father had given him for Christmas sometime between 1956 & 1958. This kit consisted of an old bass drum, snare drum, cymbal, and a few other odds & ends. Supposedly in 1958, Ringo (then Richard) borrowed 46 pounds from his Grandfather and bought his 1st legit drum kit, an Ajax with single headed toms at Frank Hussey's music store. Ringo said his 1st drums were junk that he could play with anything that was available (including firewood). This certainly fits the criteria of this cymbal, obviously before the Beatles time (where he later played Premier & Ludwig drums, and Zildjian cymbals. In 1958, Ringo (then Richard) was only 18 years old and just starting to gig with the Eddie Clayton skiffle band and play some odd gigs around town, where drummers would often sometimes share kits with the other bands playing. According to the Beatles anthology, Richard (not owning a car yet) would travel to gigs on a bus with nothing more than a snare, hihat, and top cymbal. He may have just engraved his name on the back to help identify his stuff, (which makes perfect sense, as he was an apprentice engineer at H. Hunt & Son - two of his fellow band mates were a joiner & a lathe operator there). If you refer to the "Drum Book" on page 31, Geoff Nichols mentions that Ringo used to play Ajax & Krut cymbals with Rory Storm.

There are some, and these are on a case by cymbal listen that do sound good, even a few here and there that sound great. Not many by a long stretch, but they are out there. The one you have is likely one of those that have the tendancy to sound good at very certain sound levels and on certain frequencies of resonance from the drums. Once you nail the resonance that works with this cymbal, you will have i licked and will only play it on the chace to have it match that drum's sound.

This was the motivation I needed to clean up my 20 inch Krut Special. It had accumulated a fair bit of the green funk, so I cleaned it a bit with Wright's Polish.

She has a variety of sweet spots.... some silvery, delicate tones, and some trashy, china-like spots too.

Kinda like some female companions I have known..............Excited

I haven't a clue of when she was made.

I have some Krut hats... I leave them with the Mapex kit that I let my kids friends beat on when they come over to goof off.

They are just terrible... the hats.... not the kids.

When I got the Krut i just thought it was awful after hitting it by itself (with no kit). I have been using my friends paiste signature crash and thought I would throw this Krut on one day for kicks along with the paiste. I just keep going back and forth. One minute I hit it and think "that is pretty good" and then a while later I hit it and think its pretty terrible. I think I need to hear a good drummer use it and listen to it that way.

Let me make a suggestion and an observation, first off putting the krut with the Signature is not a good fit, the Paiste is pure crystal clean beauty sound wise, the krut is more an old k typeish sound vaguely, Kevins description is spot on, in fact he didn't care for his until I was playing it one day at his house, and showed him what to mix it with and how to use it! put that krut with zildjian a's or k's or sabian aa' or hh's, there are others but these are the most common ones!

Oh, and a thanks as well for smoothing out the edges on her for me.... she was a little "bumpy' there for a while.

VTM2000 kidnapped her for a day or two, and returned her all straightened out!

She was serving as a door stop when VTM2000 met her (no kiddin').

Maybe she has suffered enough, and deserves a reprieve !!

Yes I think your spot on! I have a 20" Pre-Aged Extra Dry K ride and some 15" New Beat Zildjian hats. My friend just let me use his paiste sig. crash because I haven't been able to get a crash yet. It is probably just the bad combination of the two crashes that throws me off. I need to use the Krut alone for a while and see how it feels.

I don't know what kind of Krut cymbal that one in the picture is,but my first hats that came with my Kent's were Krut's that were more like hitting hubcaps-they were a funny silverish/brassish color and sounded GROSS.Almost like the tone grooves were added as an afterthought.