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80's Zildjian New Beat hi-hats. An old friend.

Posts: 444 Threads: 82

I normally play Zildjian Rarities Dark Thin 14" hats (along with the 19" crash/ride and 22" crash in the rarities line).

I have a set of Zildjian 14" New Beat hats my mom bought for me new in maybe 88 (been so long my memory is fuzzy) that have just been collecting dust. These things were my pride and joy in my teen years until I quit playing for years due to life but I always kept them cause there was no way I could let them go. My mom had to save for quite a while for them.

For the heck of it, I pulled them out for our jam last night and was loving it! Like meeting up with a long lost friend.

I know 80's cymbals aren't necessarily desirable but these things are priceless to me. Other than a little patina, they are in perfect shape. I took great care of them cause, well like I said, they were my pride and joy and I knew the sacrifices to get them.

For the heck of it, I weighed them. The top is 1040 grams and the bottom is 1350 grams. I'm not sure if that was typical for the time period or not or a "desirable ratio".

This was long winded but I guess the moral of the story is to try to keep those cymbals that have special meaning to you if possible. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you need the money so definitely easier said than done. Another moral to the story is to pull those old friends out once in a while. They may just bring a smile to your face!

Wes

Posted on 6 years ago
#1
Posts: 1685 Threads: 529

Great Story, Wes!

I agree about not forgetting about "old friends". I have a pair of "Block Ink Stamp" New Beats from around that same time period; some of the best sounding hi-hats ever made!

I think 80's Zildjian's are very desirable. They beat the pants off of anything in the A line that they made from the mid-90's until the A series redesign in 2013.

Posted on 6 years ago
#2
Guest

Great story indeed. Thanks Wes.

Here is some context on weights (and weight ratios) over the production eras:

A Brief History of New Beats

And prices (for matched pairs as well as New Beats)

14" A Zildjian Prices

If price is an indicator of desirability

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/A14-price-by-era.png[/img]

then it goes 1. Trans Stamps (T), 2. Small Stamps (S), 3. 60s, 4. 70s, 5. 80s, but then there seems to be a bounce back in prices once you are in the Modern (M) era since laser stamps. I haven't examined the Modern era further yet to see what's going on, as you can see in the discussion if you follow the link above.

But there are much more important things than price. Economists and statisticians (guilty as charged) just use price because it is easy to measure, not because it tells us everything we want to know.

Posted on 6 years ago
#3
Posts: 444 Threads: 82

Thanks guys. I had forgotten how much I liked this pair of hats!

And thanks for very informative history and stats as always Zenstat.

It looks like the weights of mine are fairly middle of the road for the time.

Wes

Posted on 6 years ago
#4
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