Is there such a thing? Is it possible to create a knock off or fake vintage cymbal? My friend is a guitarist and guitar enthusiast and has a collection of various guitars and always tells me about great deal that turn out to be fakes or knock-offs. He asked it this happens with drums and cymbals.
Just wondering if it would even be possible to fake a vintage cymbal?
Yes. It's been discussed here as well as various forums. There are a few examples out there.
Yes, there are examples of vintage ones (Istanbul K Zildjians being the most valuable ones thus most likely to be faked). I can remember that the "d" of Zildjian looked at bit funny on at least one die stamp so they were being called "Zilojians" by some.
I have also seen what others said was a faked modern Zildjian where the laser etched serial number looked like a crude imitation of the Zildjian one. As if an image of the original serial number had been processed (losing accuracy in the process) and laser etched onto some other cymbal. The little dots making up the image just weren't right in a close up photo.
At that point I tried to find out just what a laser etching machine costs but I couldn't get prices. Sellers seemed coy on their web sites. *sigh*
I was also interested because a daughter of a friend has just bought a precision laser cutter to make models for Architecture students at the local University and I think that was only about $25,000. So not out of reach for a factory in China where it would cost a fraction of that (since the machines come from there anyway).
It's a tough world out there.
I bought a modern 12" K constantinople splash from, I think, Cymbal Palace. They had three of them. I haven't ever found that cymbal on any Zildjian document/website, so I wonder if it was a limited run, or if they are faked. It does match all of my other Constantinoples nicely. It has the K con stamp, and has an etched serial number.
Oops. Wrong retailer. It was drumcenternh.com and it appears that there were four or five of them.
This one is mine.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wggbOO5yxkQ[/ame]
Is there such a thing? Is it possible to create a knock off or fake vintage cymbal? My friend is a guitarist and guitar enthusiast and has a collection of various guitars and always tells me about great deal that turn out to be fakes or knock-offs. He asked it this happens with drums and cymbals. Just wondering if it would even be possible to fake a vintage cymbal?
Yes it's possible, but the various fakes we've seen tend to be very obvious to anyone with a bit of experience. If you're worried, your K looks like the real deal.
I bought a modern 12" K constantinople splash from, I think, Cymbal Palace. They had three of them. I haven't ever found that cymbal on any Zildjian document/website, so I wonder if it was a limited run, or if they are faked. It does match all of my other Constantinoples nicely. It has the K con stamp, and has an etched serial number.
Man thats crazy!!
I bought a modern 12" K constantinople splash from, I think, Cymbal Palace. They had three of them. I haven't ever found that cymbal on any Zildjian document/website, so I wonder if it was a limited run, or if they are faked. It does match all of my other Constantinoples nicely. It has the K con stamp, and has an etched serial number.Oops. Wrong retailer. It was drumcenternh.com and it appears that there were four or five of them.This one is mine.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wggbOO5yxkQ
If somebody was ever going to create fake cymbals, I can assure you of this one thing...that one would be dead last on their "to do" list.
There are evidently some modern UFIP fakes going around. Genio and Primo series come to mind. Knock-offs from China, I believe.
I did recently see Ed Mann posting a Primo ride on Ebay, with the kind of starting price you would see on an authentic one. Kind of disturbing since my understanding is that he was both an endorser and distributor for UFIP at one time.
I have to imagine that "faking" a Zildjian, stamp and all would be fairly expensive.
Which is why you would do it on a used cymbal like a 22" Istanbul K Zildjian old stamp with a nice light weight, not a modern American Zildjian 12" splash. Never a splash because it is relatively cheaper because of the small diameter. But I would have though that last in the "choice for faking list" might be something even cheaper than a modern K Con splash. Say a modern chinese made 12" splash. Even cheaper again.
The faking of a stamp could turn say, 25 x Istanbul made modern cymbals from ones which might cost 25 x $50 wholesale price at source (I'm guessing that price, but say it is $50 x 25 = $1250 just to see the math) into something bigger. Imagine 25 x $2500 (that's about $62,500 worth of potential sales). The potential profit of over $60,000 leaves plenty of room for getting your die stamp faking gear into action. Sure you would have to release them onto the market slowly to avoid flooding the market or lowering the price. But it would be a scam worth working slowly for. Not that I would ever do such a thing myself. I'm just pointing out what the math says.
The value increment is different for faking modern Zildjians (even if 22" and K Con) with the laser etching. But if you already have access to the laser etching equipment, then photographing or photoshopping and putting a fake laser stamp on a cymbal is very quick and easy. Too quick and easy, just like digital technology makes it too quick and easy to give somebody a copy of copyrighted music. Same digital reproduction "problem".
